TEXT-BOOK  OF  PROSE; 


FROM 


BUKKE,   AVEBSTEK,   AND    BACON. 


NOTES,    AND     SKETCHES     OP     THE 
AUTHORS'     LIVES. 


FOR    USE  IN    SCHOOLS    AND    CLASSES, 


BY  THE 

REV.  HENRY  N.  HUDSON. 


JOHN  S.  PRELL 

Civil  &  Mechanical  Engineer. 

SAJSf  FBANCISCO.CAL. 
B  O  S  T  O  if: 

PUBLISHED   BY   GINN   BROTHERS. 
187G. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1876, 

BY  HENEY  N.  HUDSON, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


£i7( 


J.  F.  Loughlin,  Book,  Job,  and  Music  Printer,  18  Post  Office  Square,  Boston. 


PREFACE. 


TnE  TEXT-BOOK  OF  PROSE  here  offered  to  the  public  is 
intended  as  a  sort  of  companion-volume  to  the  Text-Book 
of  Poetry  published  u  few  months  ago.  Both  volumes  have 
originated  in  the  same  experiences,  and  the  contents  of 
both  are  ordered  on  the  same  principle,  namely,  that  of 
teaching  English  literature  by  authors,  and  not  by  mere 
literary  chips  and  splinters.  Both  the  method  of  the  work 
and  the  reasons  for  that  method  are  set  forth  with  somo 
fulness  in  the  Preface  to  the  former  volume.  I  have  seen 
no  cause  to  recede  at  all  from  the  statement  there  made  of 
them  ;  and  as  a  repetition  of  them  here  would  be  something 
ungraceful,  I  must  be  content  with  referring  the  reader  to 
that  Preface,  merely  remarking  withal,  that  the  matter  was 
no  recent  or  sudden  thing  with  me,  but  the  slow  result  of 
the  experience  and  reflection  of  many  years.  And  I  am 
moved  to  renew  my  protest,  if  that  be  the  right  name  for 
it,  against  putting  young  students  through  a  course  of 
mere  nibbles  and  snatches  from  a  multitude  of  authors, 
where  they  cannot  stay  long  enough  with  any  one  to  de- 
velop any  real  taste  for  him,  or  derive  any  solid  benefit 
from  him. 

I  shall  hope  to  be  excused  for  observing,  further,  that 
the  miscellaneous  selections  now  so  commonly  in  use  in- 
•  ne  error  of  so  gross  a  character,  that  it  ought  not  to 
be  left  unnoticed.  Those  selections  make  a  merit,  appar- 
ently, of  ranging  over  as  wide  a  field  of  authorship  as  may 
be,  and  value  themselves  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
authors  included.  So  their  method  is  to  treat  the  giants 
and  the  pigmies,  the  big  guns  and  the  popguns  of  litera- 
ture on  a  footing  of  equality:  nay,  you  shall  often  find  the 

615 


IV  PREFACE. 

smaller  made  even  more  prominent  than  the  greater ;  per- 
haps because  the  former  are  more  apt  to  be  popular  than 
the  latter.  For  instance,  two  pages  will  be  given  to  Mac- 
aulay,  or  to  a  writer  of  still  lower  grade,  where  one  is  given 
to  Jeremy  Taylor  or  Addison  or  Burke.  So,  again,  some 
fifth-rate  or  sixth-rate  author,  whose  name  is  hardly  known 
out  of  Boston,  comes  in  for  a  larger  space  than  is  accorded 
to  Daniel  Webster.  Or,  once  more,  Edgar  A.  Poe's  vapid 
inanities  done  into  verse,  where  all  is  mere  jugglery  of 
words,  or  an  exercise  in  verbal  legerdemain,  are  made  quite 
as  much  of  as  the  choice  workmanship  of  our  best  Ameri- 
can poets,  Bryant,  Longfellow,  and  Whittier.  This  is  an 
application  of  the  levelling  principle  so  unjust  and  so 
inexpedient,  that  we  may  well  marvel  how  it  should  be 
tolerated  in  any  walks  of  liberal  learning  and  culture. 

No  thoughtful  person,  I  take  it,  will  have  any  difficulty 
in  gathering  that  this  volume  is  made  up,  like  its  prede- 
cessor, with  a  special  view  to  the  oldest  and  ripest  pupils 
in  our  high-schools  and  seminaries  and  academies.  These 
pupils,  it  may  well  be  supposed,  are  old  enough  and  ripe 
enough  to  unfold  at  least  the  beginnings  of  literary  and 
intellectual  taste,  so  as  to  be  at  home  and  find  delight  in 
tasteful  and  elegant  authorship,  where  the  graces  may  do 
something  towards  making  the  ways  of  learning  ways  of 
pleasantness  to  them. 

Of  the  three  authors  here  drawn  upon,  two  are,  by  gen- 
eral suffrage,  the  very  greatest  in  the  prose  literature  of 
the  English-speaking  world,  while  the  third  is,  I  believe, 
generally  and  justly  held  to  be,  by  all  odds,  the  first  in  the 
prose  literature  of  our  own  country.  In  the  case  of  Burke 
and  Webster,  the  works  from  which  I  had  to  select  are 
somewhat  voluminous,  and  it  is  quite  likely  that  my  selec- 
tions are  not  in  all  cases  the  most  judicious  that  might 
have  been  made.  On  this  point  I  can  but  plead  that,  after 
an  acquaintance  of  many  years  with  those  authors,  I  have 
used  my  best  care  and  diligence  in  looking  out  such  por- 
tions as  seemed  to  me  to  combine,  in  the  greatest  degree, 
the  two  qualities  of  literary  excellence  and  of  fitness  to  the 


PREFACE.  V 

purposes  of  this  volume.  Nor,  perhaps,  will  it  be  amiss  to 
add,  in  reference  to  Burke  and  Webster,  that  I  often  found 
it  not  easy  to  choose  between  several  pieces,  and  that  I  was 
compelled  by  lack  of  room  to  omit  a  considerable  number 
of  pieces  which  I  would  have  liked  to  retain :  an  embarrass- 
ment naturally  springing  from  a  redundancy  of  wealth. 

As  to  the  principle  on  which  the  selections  proceed,  my 
aim  has  been,  throughout,  to  unite  the  culture  of  high  and 
pure  literary  tastes  with  the  attainment  of  useful  and  lib- 
eral knowledge.  I  think  it  will  not  be  questioned  that 
there  is  something  of  special  reason  why  our  young  people 
of  both  sexes  should  be  early  and  carefully  instructed  in 
the  principles  of  our  federal  Constitution,  and  in  the 
structure  and  working  of  our  august  national  State.  We 
pride  ourselves  on  the  alleged  competency  of  the  American 
people  for  self-government.  Yet  it  is  but  too  evident  that, 
in  political  matters,  a  large  majority  of  them  have  not 
advanced  beyond  the  "little  learning"  which  is  proverbially 
"a  dangerous  thing."  The  degree  of  intelligence  which 
naturally  issues  in  conceit  and  presumption  is  the  utmost 
that  can  be  affirmed  of  them.  Thus  it  comes  about  that, 
for  the  seats  of  public  trust,  shallow,  flashy  demagogues  are 
very  commonly  preferred  to  solid,  judicious,  honest  men. 
At  this  day,  our  average  voter  certainly  has  not  more 
judgment  of  his  own  than  he  had  fifty  years  ago,  and  he 
has  far  less  respect  for  the  judgment  of  wiser  men.  The 
popular  mind  is  indeed  busy  enough  with  the  vulgar 
politics  of  the  hour;  but  in  the  true  grounds  and  forces  of 
social  and  political  well-being  it  is  discouragingly  ignorant, 
while  it  is  more  and  more  casting  oiT  those  habits  of  mod- 
esty and  reverence  which  might  do  the  work  of  knowledge. 

This  may  explain  why  so  much  of  the  present  volume  is 
occupied  with  discourses  relating  to  government,  and  to 
the  duties  and  interests  of  men  as  stockholders  in  the 
commonwealth.  In  the  common  principles  of  all  social 
and  civil  order,  Burke  is  unquestionably  our  best  and 
wisest  teacher.  In  handling  the  particular  questions  of  his 
time,  lie  always  involves  those  principles,  and  brings  them 


vi  PEEFACE. 

to  their  practical  bearings,  where  they  most  "come  homo 
to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  men."  And  his  pages  are 
everywhere  bright  with  the  highest  and  purest  political 
morality,  while  at  the  same  time  he  is  a  consummate  mas- 
ter in  the  intellectual  charms  and  graces  of  authorship. 
Webster,  also,  is  abundantly  at  home  in  those  common 
principles  :  his  giant  grasp  wields  them  with  the  ease  and 
grace  of  habitual  mastery :  therewithal  he  is  by  far  the 
ablest  and  clearest  expounder  we  have  of  what  may  be 
termed  the  specialties  of  our  American  political  system. 
So  that  you  can  hardly  touch  any  point  of  our  stupendous 
National  Fabric,  but  that  he  will  approve  himself  at  once 
your  wisest  and  your  pleasantest  teacher.  In  fact,  I  hardly 
know  which  to  commend  most,  his  political  wisdom,  his 
ponderous  logic,  the  perfect  manliness  of  his  style,  or  the 
high-souled  enthusiasm  which  generally  animates  and  tones 
his  discourse ;  the  latter  qualities  being  no  less  useful  to 
inspire  the  student  with  a  noble  patriotic  ardour  than  the 
former  to  arm  him  with  sound  and  fruitful  instruction. 
And  so,  between  Burke  and  Webster,  it'  the  selections  are 
made  with  but  tolerable  judgment,  our  youth  may  here 
learn  a  good  deal  of  what  it  highly  concerns  them  to 
know  as  citizens  of  a  free  republican  State. 

I  am  not  unmindful  that,  in  thus  placing  Webster  along- 
side of  Burke,  I  may  be  inviting  upon  him  a  trial  some- 
thing too  severe.  I  do  not  by  any  means  regard  him  as  the 
peer  of  Burke;  but  it  is  my  deliberate  judgment  that  he 
comes  neare?  to  Burke,  and  can  better  stand  a  fair  com- 
parison with  him,  than  any  other  English-speaking  states- 
man of  modern  times.  In  pure  force  of  intellect.  Burke 
was  no  doubt  something  ahead  of  him,  and  was  far  beyond 
him  in  strength  and  richness  of  imagination;  for  he  was, 
as  Johnson  described  him,  emphatically  "a  constellation  ": 
on  the  other  hand,  Burke's  tempestuous  sensibility  some- 
times whirled  him  into  exorbitances,  where  AVebster's  cooler 
temperament  and  more  balanced  make-up  would  probably 
have  held  him  firm  in  his  propriety.  And  Webster,  though 
far  above  imitating  any  man,  abounds  in  marks  of  a  very 


PKEFACE.  Vll 

close  and  diligent  study  of  Burke.  It  seems  specially 
noteworthy,  that  he  was  thoroughly  at  one  with  Burke  in 
an  intense  aversion  to  political  metaphysics,  and  to  those 
speculative  abstractions  which,  if  attempted  to  he  carried 
into  the  practical  work  of  government,  can  never  do  any 
thing  but  mischief. 

In  regard  to  fthe/»  selections  from  Bacon,  I  there  had 
nothing  to  distfact  4ry  choice,  or  cause  me  any  embarrass- 
ment. The  settled  "verdict  of  mankind  points  at  once  to 
his  Essays  as  a.  book  which  no  liberally-educated  person 
can  rightly  affordvvto  be  unacquainted  with.  Other  of  his 
works  may  better  illustrate  the  vast  height  and  compass  of 
his  genius  ;  but  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  little  suited,  or 
rather  quite  unsuited  to  the  ends  of  this  volume.  But  his 
Essays  everywhere  touch  the  common  interests  and  con- 
cerns of  human  life;  they  are  freighted  to  the  utmost  with 
solid  practical  sense;  and  as  specimens  of  moral  and  civil 
discourse  it  is  hardly  possible  to  overstate  the  wisdom  and 
beauty  of  them.  Of  the  fifty-eight  Essays,  I  here  give 
thirty ;  and  I  was  nowise  at  a  loss  which  to  select.  Nor, 
had  my  space  been  ever  so  large,  should  I  have  greatly 
cared  to  include  any  more  of  them. 

I  have  a  good  right  to  know  that  Bacon  and  Burke  are 
among  our  very  best  authors  for  the  use  to  which  this 
volume  looks.  The  Essays,  the  Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of 
Bristol,  and  the  Speech  to  the  Electors  of  Bristol,  I  have 
been  using  several  years,  with  good  effect,  in  some  of  my 
own  classes.  There  are  many  other  portions  of  Burko 
equally  good,  and  some  still  better,  for  such  use;  which, 
however,  were  not  to  be  had  in  a  practicable  shape.  And  I 
have  long  been  wishing  to  make  a  like  use  of  Webster,  but 
have  never  been  able  to  do  so,  because  none  of  his  works 
w»-rf  ;it  hand  in  a  suitable  form.  I  feel  right  well  assured 
that  he  will  amply  reward  the  same  study,  and  that,  if  not 
so  good  in  himself  as  the  other  two,  he  has  some  obvious 
points  of  preference  in  the  education  of  American  youth. 
Nor  can  I  think  it  fitting  or  just  to  be  using  only  such 
fragments  of  him  as  arc  commonly  served  up  for  mere 


Viii  PREFACE. 

exercises  in  declamation  and  elocution  :  in  fact,  I  have  little 
faith  in  such  exercises,  save  in  connection  with  the  attain- 
ment of  something  higher  and  better.  For  manner,  to  be 
really  good,  must  be  held  subordinate  to  matter;  and  the 
pursuit  of  manner  for  its  own  sake,  or  even  as  a  paramount 
aim,  can  hardly  fail  to  result  in  a  very  bad  manner.  I 
submit  that  the  art,  or  the  habit,  of  pronouncing  nothing 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  pass  for  something  grand,  is 
not  so  little  known  among  us  as  to  call  for  special  encour- 
agement and  aid  by  books  and  teachers.  At  present  wo 
seem  to  be  in  no  little  danger  of  educating  people  into  a 
good  deal  more  tongue  than  mind. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  say  that  this  vol- 
ume is  not  designed  for  any  "auction  of  popularity.'7  The 
thought  of  popular  favour  has  had  no  part  or  lot  in  the 
preparation  of  it.  For  I  know  right  well  that,  in  prepara- 
tions of  this  sort,  a  great  many  people  altogether  prefer 
something  which  may  seem  to  teacli  a  little  of  every  thing, 
while  really  giving  no  true  instruction  whatever.  So  the 
most  I  venture  to  hope  for  is,  that  the  book  may  commend 
itself  to  the  judicious;  the  number  of  whom,  I  fear,  is  not 
large  enough  to  make  up  any  thing  like  a  popularity.  And 
this  leads  me  to  remark  that  our  young  students,  it  seems 
to  me,  can  be  better  occupied  than  with  the  transient,  shift- 
ing literary  fashions  and  popularities  of  the  day.  I  am 
not  myself  a  very  aged  man,  yet  I  am  old  enough  to  have 
outlived  two  generations  of  "immortal"  writers  who  have 
already  sunk  into  oblivion ;  and  of  the  popular  authors 
now  living  probably  very  few  will  be  heard  of  thirty  years 
hence.  Surely,  in  forming  the  mind  and  taste  of  the  young, 
it  is  better  to  use  authors  who  have  already  lived  long  enough 
to  afford  some  guaranty  that  they  may  survive  the  next 
twenty  years. 

BOSTON,  January,  1876. 


CONTENTS. 


BURKE. 

Pago. 

Sketch  of  his  Life 1 

Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol 9 

How  to  retain  the  Colonies 47 

The  People  of  New  England 49 

Speech  on  Economical  Reform 50 

Obedience  to  Instructions 113 

Speech  to  the  Electors  of  Bristol 115 

Growth  of  the  American  Trade 152 

Character  of  George  Grenville 154 

Lord  Chatham  and  Charles  Townshend    ....  155 

State  of  Things  in  France 159 

The  Revolution  in  France 163 

Liberty  in  the  Abstract 190 

Freedom  as  an  Inheritance 192 

The  Revolutionary  Third  Estate 198 

The  Rights  of  Men 204 

Abuse  of  History 207 

English  Toleration 209 

How  a  Wise  Statesman  proceeds 211 

True  Principles  of  Reform 213 

Fanaticism  of  Liberty 217 

The  Ethics  of  Vanity 219 

The  Old  and  the  New  Whigs 22G 

A  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord 248 

France  at  War  with  Humanity 285 

Fanatical  Atheism 296 

How  to  deal  with  Jacobin  France 298 

ix 


X  CONTESTS. 

Page. 

Desolation  of  the  Carnatic 299 

Unlawfulness  of  Arbitrary  Power 307 

Cruelties  of  Debi  Sing 311 

Impeachment  of  Hastings 315 

Justice  and  Revenge 318 

Appeal  for  Judgment  upon  Hastings 321 

" The  Labouring  Poor" 325 


WEBSTER. 

Sketch  of  his  Life 32C 

Speech  in  Reply  to  Hayne 335 

Blessings  of  the  Constitution 385 

Presidential  Nullification 395 

The  Spoils  to  the  Victors 402 

Fraudulent  Party  Outcries 407 

The  Position  of  Mr.  Calhoun 411 

South  Carolina  Nulliacation 412 

The  Presidential  Protest 421 

The  Character  of  Washington 4G1 

Alexander  Hamilton 473 

First  Settlement  of  New  England 475 

The  First  Century  of  New  England 483 

The  Second  Century  of  New  England       ....  489 

Appeal  against  the  Slave-Trade 492 

Bunker-Hill  Monument  begun 494 

Bunker-Hill  Monument  finished 498 

Adams  in  the  Congress  of  1776 500 

Right  Use  of  Learning 505 

The  Murder  of  Mr.  White 500 

Character  of  Lord  Byron 511 

Character  of  Judge  Story 512 

Religion  as  an  Element  of  Greatness 515 

Each  to  interpret  the  Law  for  himself      ....  510 

Irredeemable  Paper 518 

Benefits  of  the  Credit  System 521 


CONTENTS.  Xi 

Page. 

Abuse  of  Executive  Patronage 626 

Philanthropic  Love  of  Power 527 

The  Spirit  of  Disunion 529 

Importance  of  the  Navy 532 

The  Log  Cabin 533 

Speaking  for  the  Union 535 

Obedience  to  Instructions 536 

Peaceable  Secession 537 

Standing  upon  the  Constitution 540 

Appeal  for  the  Union 543 


BACON. 

Sketch  of  his  Lifo 553 

FROM  THE  ESSAYS  : 

Of  Truth 561 

Of  Death 563 

Of  Unity  in  Religion 565 

Of  Revenge 569 

Of  Adversity 570 

Of  Parents  and  Children 572 

Of  Marriage  and  Single  Lifo 673 

Of  Great  Place 575 

Of  Boldness 578 

Of  Goodness,  and  Goodness  of  Nature        .       .       .579 

Of  Atheism 581 

Of  Superstition 684 

Of  Travel 686 

Of  Wisdom  for  a  Man's  Self 587 

Of  Innovations 589 

Of  Seeming  Wise 590 

Of  Friendship 591 

Of  Expense 597 

Of  Suspicion    .       . 598 

Of  Discourse 599 

Of  Riches  601 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

FBOM  THE  ESSAYS  :  Page> 

Of  Nature  in  Men .604 

Of  Custom  and  Education 605 

Of  Youth  and  Age 607 

Of  Beauty 608 

Of  Deformity 609 

Of  Studies       .' 610 

Of  Praise 611 

Of  Judicature 613 

Of  Anger 610 

FROM  THE  ADVANCEMENT  OP  LEARNING  : 

Discredits  of  Learning 618 

Dignity  and  Value  of  Knowledge         .       .       .  .624 

Miscellaneous  632 


EDMUND     BURKE: 

SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE. 


EDMUND  BURKE,  the  greatest  of  political  philosophers,  was  born  in  the 
City  of  Dublin  on  the  12th  of  January.  The  day  of  his  birth  we  learn 
from  a  letter  of  his  to  Lord  Rockingham,  dated  January  12,  1775,  in  which 
lie  says,  "  My  birth-day  ;  I  need  not  say  how  long  ago."  But  what  was  so 
well  known  then  stands  in  some  doubt  now.  The  time  of  his  entering  col- 
lege i-  easily  ascertained;  and  from  the  registry  then  made  of  his  age  it 
Mvms  probable  that  the  year  of  his  birth  was  1728  ;  but  this  is  somewhat 
uncertain  ;  it  inny  have  been  1729.  His  father,  llichard  Burke,  was  a 
respectable  attorney,  of  good  practice,  but  of  a  rather  irritable  and  unhap- 
py temper.  (  n'  course  lie  was  a  I'rotcstant,  el>e  he  could  not  have  been  a 
member  of  the  Dublin  \\ar.  His  wife,  the  mother  of  all  his  children,  was 
Mary  Nagle,  and  she  and  all  her  family  were  devout  Roman  Catholics. 
Of  their  children  only  four  grew  to  maturity,  —  three  sons,  Garret,  Ed- 
mund, and  Richard,  and  one  daughter,  Juliana.  The  sons  were  educated 
in  the  religion  of  their  father;  the  daughter  in  that  of  her  mother. 

In  his  earlier  years,  Edmund's  health  was  frail  and  delicate,  and  much 
of  his  childhood  was  spent  with  his  mother's  kindred,  the  Nagles,  at  Cas- 
tletown  Roche,  in  the  south  of  Ireland.  As  these  people  were  of  a  pleasant 
and  amiable  temper,  he  is  said  to  have  been  much  happier  with  them  than 
at  his  father's  house.  There  it  was  that  his  great,  warm,  manly  heart  had 
much  of  it>  best  early  nursing;  thus  rightly  predisposing  him  to  be,  what 
he  afterwards  became,  the  untiring  champion  of  the  oppressed  Roman 
Catholics  of  his  native  land  against  the  dreadful  bigotry  and  intolerance 
of  the  then  governing  classes  of  Ireland. 

In  May,  1741,  Burke,  then  in  his  fourteenth  year,  went  to  Ballitorc, 
some  twenty-eight  miles  south  of  Dublin,  where  he  spent  the  next  two 
years  in  the,  school  of  Abraham  Shackleton,  a  most  intelligent,  upright, 
and  amiable  Quaker,  for  whom  he  ever  after  entertained  the  deepest  respect 
and  affection.  There  his  preparation  for  college  was  made  ;  and,  what 
was  still  better,  there  he.  formed  a  life-long  friendship  with  his  good  teach- 
er's son,  Richard  Shackleton,  whose  noble  and  benevolent  character  was 
thenceforth  enshrined  among  his  dearest  memories.  As  Burke  was  him- 
self a  most  lovely  character,  the  love  he  bore  the  Shacklctons  was  heartily 
reciprocated  by  them. 

In  the  Spring  «»f  1743,  Burke  entered  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  Though 
well  grounded  in  the  classics,  especially  in  Latin,  he  did  not  particularly 
distinguish  himself  in  the  prescribed  studies,  his  passion  for  general  read- 
ing being  so  stioni:  as  to  divert  him  overmuch  from  them.  However,  he 
took  his  regular  degree  in  1748,  and  not  long  after  set  out  for  London,  to 
cii^MLre  in  the  study  of  the  law,  his  name  having  been  entered  in  the  Mid- 
;nple  some  time  before.  He  continued  nominally  a  Templar  for 
three  years,  and  then  threw  up  the  study  of  the  law  altogether.  In  truth, 
he  never  did,  and  probably  never  could,  draw  his  mind  down  closely  to 
that  study  :  the  instincts  of  his  genius  were  against  it ;  and  surely  no  man 
ever  had  those  instincts  in  greater  strength.  His  most  discursive  and  most 


2  BURKE. 

comprehensive  intellect  could  not  possibly  set  up  its  rest  in  so  circum- 
scribed a  field.  During  that  period,  however,  he  was  any  thing  but  idle. 
His  prodigious  mental  hunger  kept  foraging  far  and  wide  in  miscellaneous 
reading:  besides,  he  spent  much  time  in  travelling  about  the  country,  run- 
versing  variously  and  minutely  with  English  life,  face  to  lace,  and  storing 
his  mind  with  first-hand  knowledge  in  all  matters  of  trade,  commerce,  and 
manufactures. 

All  this  was  highly  displeasing  to  Burke's  father,  whose  heart  was  set 
upon  having  his  son  bred  to  the  law.  As  he  now  cither  stopped  the  sup- 
plies or  dealt  them  grudgingly  and  sparely,  Burke  began  to  turn  his 
thoughts  to  literature  for  the  means  of  living.  He  had  already  made  ac- 
quaintance with  some  of  the  wits  of  London  ;  and  all  through  his  life  he 
cultivated  habitudes  more  or  less  with  that  class  of  men  ;  though  the  uu- 
happy  foibles  so  common  among  them  never  found  any  thing,  apparently, 
in  his  nature  to  stick  upon.  It  is  said  that  at  this  time  he  was  a  frequent, 
not  to  say  constant,  attendant  at  the  Drury-Lanc  theatre  ;  and  it  is  certain 
that  with*  David  Garrick,  the  great  actor'of  the  time,  he  formed  a  friend- 
ship which  continued  till  the  death  of  Garriek. 

A  few  years  before,  Lord  Bolingbroke  had  died,  leaving  some  of  his 
boldest  deistical  and  freethinking  speculations  in  manuscript.  In  the 
Spring  of  1754,  these  were  ushered  before  the  public  with  a  grand  flourish 
of  trumpets,  as  something  that  was  going  to  change  the  intellectual  and 
moral  face  of  the  world.  They  had  their  brief  turn  of  popularity  ;  the  lit- 
erary fashion-mongers  of  the  hour  being  all  agog  with  them.  Whatever 
may  have  been  thought  of  the  author's  philosophy,  he  was  generally  held 
to  have  beaten  all  former  writers  in  the  use  of  English  :  even  Lord  Chester- 
field and  William  Pitt  concurred  with  the  rest  in  pronouncing  his  style 
inimitable.  Burke  was  not  at  all  taken  with  the  Bolingbrokc  furor;  he 
disliked  him  exceedinglv  both  as  a  thinker  and  as  a  man  :  in  fact,  Boling- 
broke might  almost  be  described  as,  in  philosophy  and  politics,  his  "pet 
aversion."  Accordingly,  his  first  literary  performance  was  a  philosophic 
satire  on  his  lordship's  posthumous  lucubrations,  which  appeared  in  1756, 
with  the  title,  "A  Vindication  of  Natural  Society;  or,  a  View  of  the  Miser- 
ies and  Evils  arising  to  Mankind  from  every  species  of  Artificial  Society; 

in  a  Letter  to  Lord ,  by  a  late  Noble  Writer."  This  was  meant  as  a 

redact  to  ad  absurdum  of  the  Bolingbroke  philosophy,  by  showing  that  the 
same  principles  and  the  same  mode  of  reasoning,  which  Bolingbroke  had 
used  against  revealed  Religion,  would  hold  equally  good  against  all  civil- 
ized society  among  mankind.  But  the  irony  was  so  well  concealed,  and 
the  imitation  of  Bolingbroke's  style  so  perfect,  that  the  pamphlet  was 
generally  ascribed  at  once  to  his  lordship's  pen. 

Burke's  next  literary  undertaking  was  his  treatise  On  the  Sublime  and 
Beautiful,  published  a  few  months  after  the  forecited  work.  This  at  once 
placed  him  high  among  the  leading  authors  of  the  time  :  Hume  praised  it ; 
Johnson  thought  it  a  model  of  philosophical  criticism.  A  second  edition 
was  soon  called  for,  and  came  out  considerablv  enlarged  and  improved, 
with  an  excellent  Preface  added,  and  also  a  Discourse  on  Taste.  The  work 
is  indeed  written  with  great  ability  and  elegance,  and  in  a  style  of  philo- 
sophic calmness  well  suited  to  the  theme.  But  the  whole  subject  is  dis- 
cussed on  the  low,  mechanical  notions  then  prevalent,  and  the  theory  of  it 
has  long  been  justly  discarded  as  monstrous  and  absurd:  it  {.imply 'drags 
the  entire  body  of  poetry  down  into  an  earthy  region  where  the  soul  of 
poetry  cannot  possibly  live. 

At  this  period,  we  have  an  episode  in  Burke's  life,  which  is  highly  inter- 
esting, as  illustrating  his  native  generosity  of  disposition.  A  pitted  and 
heroic  young  Armenian,  named  Joseph  Emin,  who  had  been  in  Calcutta, 
and  had  there  gathered  some  knowledge  of  the  English  hinguage  and  char- 
acter, made  his  appearance  in  London,  with  his  heart  full  of  noble  and 


SKETCH   OF  HIS   LIFE.  3 

patriotic  aspirations  for  the  political  regeneration  of  his  native  land.  He 
was  burning  with  desire  to  learn  the  arts  and  ways  of  European  civiliza- 
tion, and  thus  qualify  himself  for  the  great  designs  lie  was  meditating  in 
behalf  of  his  betoveu  Armenia.  Burke,  while  walking  one  day  in  St. 
James'  Park  with  a  gentleman  who  already  knew  Emin,  accidentally  met 
him  and  was  introduced  to  him.  His  penetrating  eye  at  once  saw  the  gen- 
ius of  the  man,  and  his  big  warm  heart  was  equally  prompt  to  sympathize 
with  the  man's  heroic  as].irations.  The  storv  is  much  too  long  for  any 
thing  more  than  a  passing  glance  at  it  here  :  sutlicc  it  to  say,  that  Burke, 
then  in  the  ardour  of  youthful  genius,  earnestly  espoused  the  stranger's 
cause,  and,  though  poor  himself,  offered  to  share  his  last  guinea  with  the 
brave  Armenian.  lie  found  some  employment  for  him  on  liberal  terms, 
lent  him  books,  opened  his  doors  to  him,  gave  him  advice,  and  did  all  ho 
could  to  further  his  plans. 

Early  in  1757,  Burke  was  married  to  Mary  Jane  Nugent,  daughter  to 
Christopher  Nugent,  M.D.,  of  Bath,  who  afterwards  removed  to  London. 
Dr.  Nugent  was  himself  also  a  native  of  Ireland;  and  the  marriage  proved 
eminently  happy  in  every  respect:  nothing,  indeed,  can  well  be  conceived 
more  noble  and  beautiful  than  the  great  statesman's  wedded  life;  for  in 
his  home  Burke  was  one  of  the  loveliest  of  men,  whilst  his  wife  also  was 
one  of  the  loveliest  of  women.  She  was  not,  we  are  told,  what  is  called  a 
regular  bcautv  ;  but  was  ever  sweet  and  gentle  in  her  disposition,  and  inex- 
pro-ibly  graceful  and  winning  in  her  manners.  Stern  men  of  the  world 
spoke  of  her  :i>  all  that  was  amiable  among  women,  and  the  most  discrim- 
inating of  her  own  sex  gave  her  similar  praise.  As  her  sole  ambition  was 
to  make  her  hu>l>and  happv  in  his  home,  she  was  so  quiet  and  retiring  in 
her  ways,  that  few  of  his  friends  had  any  acquaintance  with  her.  cxeept 
those  who  habitually  vi.-ited  at  his  house.  Kver  soothing  his  natural  irrita- 
bilitv,  standing  bv  his  side  in  hours  of  despondency,  cheering  him  in  pov- 
erty, nursing  him  in  sickness,  consoling  him  in  sorrow,  —  such  was  her 
way  of  showing  "  how  divine  a  thing  a  woman  may  be  made." 

With  this  new  respon.-ibility  on  his  hands,  Burke  now  had  enough  to 
do;  for  he  was  receiving  but  little  from  his  father,  and  Dr.  Nugent,  though 
in  heart  and  will  all  that  a  good  father-in-law  could  be,  was  by  no  means 
rich,  llis  next  literary  work  was  An  A<-'-ount  n/'tlt-  A'l/ro^m/i  S&tltmmU  in 
Anurn-ii,  published  in  the  Spring  of  17.~>7,  and  again,  with  improvements, 
in  17f>s.  This  was  soon  followed  by  his  A'.-.svn/  towards  an  Abridgment  of 
Enifl'iKk  Ilistnrif. 

In  17.")H,  whi'ie  Pitt,  as  Prime  Minister,  was  carrying  all  before  him,  and 
was  touching  every  fibre  of  old  England  into  resurgent  life,  IJurke  set  on 
foot  the  Annual  Router.  This  wa>  meant  to  embrace  a  review  of  the  his- 
torv,  poliiies,  and  literature  of  each  vear.  The  lirst  volume,  published  in 
17.")'.».  uave  a  complete  historv  of  the  war,  then  in  progress,  from  its  begin- 


a complete  historv  of  the  war,  then  in  p 
ning  to  the  close  of  1758.     The  undertaking  was  entirely  successful.     The 
Annwil  JtH/ixttr  soon    became,  and  still  remains,  a  standard    authority  as  a 
poiitiral,  military,  and  literary  chronicle  of  the  time.     At  lirst,  Uurke,  it  is 
did  all  the  writing  for  it  ;  and  he  continued  to  do  the  better  part  of  it 
for  many  years,  till  his   time  and   strength  were  ail  drawn  off  to  more  im- 
:  -it  labours.     lie  himself,  however,  reaped  n;>  great  pecuniary  advan- 

tn  it,  receiving  onlv  .£!()()  for  each  volume. 

In  the  Spring  of  1761,  the  Earl  of  Halifax  went  to  Ireland  as  Lord  Licu- 
,r,  with  William  (Jerard  Hamilton,  commonly  called  Single-speech 
Hamilton,  for  his  Chief  Secretary.  Uurke  had  for  some  time  been  on 
terms  of  intimacy  with  Hamilton  ;  and  he  now  attended  him  to  Ireland,  in 
what  capacity  is  not  altogether  clear,  but  probably  as  a  sort  of  confidential 
adviser.  This  was  the  first  that  Burke  had  to  do  with  public  affairs. 
"While  he  was  in  Dublin  with  Hamilton,  his  father  died.  He  was  now  in  a 
position  to  do  something  for  the  relief  of  his  oppressed  native  laud,  and  he 


4  BURKE. 

made  the  best  use  of  his  opportunities  to  that  end.  Hamilton  retained  his 
office  till  1764,  when  he  was  dismissed,  and  Burke  returned  with  him  to 
England.  Meanwhile  Hamilton  had  secured  for  himself  a  very  lucrative 
sinecure  as  Superintendent  of  the  Irish  finances,  which  he  held  for  twenty 
years.  He  also  procured  a  pension  of  £300  a-\  ear  from  the  Irish  treasury 
for  his  confidential  friend.  Burke  kept  up  his  connection  with  Hamilton 
some  time  longer,  till  at  length  Hamilton's  patronage  became  so  oppressive, 
that  he  separated  from  him  in  disgust,  and  ev<  n  refused  the  pension. 

Burke  was  now  thirty-seven  years  old,  and,  though  holding  no  recog- 
nized official  place,  had  served  a  sort  of  apprenticeship  in  public  life.  Still 
he  had  no  means  of  support  but  what  the  Annual  Register  brought  him, 
with  such  help  as  Dr.  Nugent  could  afford.  Some  years  before,  his  older 
brother,  Garret,  had  inherited  a  farm  in  Ireland  from  a  maternal  relative. 
In  April,  1765,  he  died  unmarried,  and  the  inheritance  fell  to  Edmund  as 
the  next  in  succession.  The  estate  is  said  to  have  been  worth  about  Gioito. 
Meanwhile  the  Crown  and  Parliament  had  got  under  full  headway  in  that 
fatal  course  of  legislation  which  was  to  end  in  the  loss  of  the  American 
Colonies.  Burke  watched  all  these  misdoings  with  the  keenest  scrutiny, 
and  was  free  and  outspoken  in  condemnation  of  them.  At  length,  in  the 
Summer  of  17 (').").  the  Grenville  government  broke  down  utterly,  and  the 
Marquess  of  Kockingham  was  called  to  the  helm.  The  new  Whig  Ministry 
was  formed  early  in  July  ;  and  a  lew  days  afterward  Burke  became  acquainted 
with  the  Marquess,  and  was  soon  selected  by  him  for  his  private  secretary. 
Thus  began  a  very  noble  friendship,  both  political  and  personal,  which 
continued,  without  a  moment  of  coldness,  till  the  death  of  Kockingham. 

On  the  26th  of  December,  1765,  Burke  was  elected  member  of  Parlia- 
ment for  Wendover.  This  was  a  small,  close  borough,  under  the  influence 
of  Lord  Verney.  William  Burke,  a  kinsman  of  Edmund's,  though  in 
what  degree  is  unknown,  was  to  have  had  the  election;  but  he  cheerfully 
withdrew  in  favour  of  his  great  relative,  and  his  patron.  Lord  Verney, 
readily  consented  to  the  change,  and  had  William  returned  for  another 
constituency  that  was  also  under  his  influence.  On  the  14th  of  January, 
Burke  took  his  seat  in  the  House  among  the  supporters  of  the  Ministry. 
Fourteen  days  later,  he  made  his  first  speech,  and  was  at  once  so  far  master 
of  the  situation  as  to  hold  the  close  attention  of  the  great  Pitt,  who  highly 
commended  the  effort.  The  question  was  on  receiving  a  petition  from  the 
American  Colonies.  Even  some  of  the  Ministers  opposed  the  reception  on 
the  ground  of  its  being  subversive  of  the  authority  of  the  House;  but 
Burke  justly  urged  that  the  offering  of  such  a  petition  was  itself  an  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  House's  jurisdiction.  On  the  3d  of  February,  he 
spoke  again,  with  still  greater  success,  filling  the  House  with  wonder  and 
astonishment.  This  was  in  favour  of  what  is  called  the  Declarato 
which  affirmed  the  unlimited  power  of  the  Crown  and  Parliament  over  the 
Colonies,  —  a  doctrine  always  maintained  by  Burke,  against  Pitt  and  a  few 
other  members.  The  Kockingham  policy  was,  to  affirm  in  full  the  impe- 
rial power  of  Great  Britain,  and  then  repeal  all  the  offensive  Acts  and  re- 
dress all  the  actual  grievances  under  which  the  Colonies  were  suffering. 
On  the  21st  of  February,  the  question  of  repealing  the  Stamp  Act  came 
up,  when  he  spoke  the  third  time,  and  again  won  the  applause  of  the. 
House  by  the  originality  and  freshness  of  his  arguments  and  his  style  of 
putting  them.  He  had  already  sprung  up,  as  at  one  bound,  to  the  highest 
rank  of  parliamentary  orators.  And  from  this  time  onwards,  though,  from 
his  thorough  mastery  of  every  subject  that  came  before  the  House,  and 
from  his  overflowing  fulness  of  thought,  he  probably  <poke  too  often,  it  is 
certain  that  no  man  ever  held  that  stormy  audience  more  completely  in  his 
hand.  It  has  indeed  been  often  said  that  his  speaking  served  as  a  dinner- 
bell  to  the  House;  but  this  saying  arose  at  a  later  time,  when  a  large  ma- 
jority of  the  members  were  naturally  impatient  of  hearing  such  clear  and 


SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE.  5 

cogent  reasons  against  the  course  they  had  made  tip  their  minds  to  pursue. 
But,  great  as  was  his  eloquence,  his  wisdom  was  greater.  With  the  auro- 
ral splendours  of  his  genius  were  ever  mingled  words  of  prophetic  insight; 
and  the  final  result  of  those  disastrous  years  only  approved  how  truly  it 
had  been  his  lot  to  "  prophesy  to  cars  that  would  not  hear." 

The  Koekingham  Ministry  continued  in  power  till  the  end  of  July,  1766. 
Though  their  polio*  was  last  healing  all  the  troubles  brought  on  by  previous 
misgovernmcnt,  it  was  so  distasteful  to  the  King,  the  Court,  and  especially 
to  Chatham,  that  they  were  forced  to  resign,  thus  breaking  off  in  the  midst 
of  their  good  work.  Then  followed  the  piebald  administration  of  Chatham, 
when  the  worst  features  of  the  former  policy  were  fatally  revived.  This 
Ministry  soon  broke  down,  and  gave  place  to  the  long  administration  of 
Lord  North,  during  most  of  which  Burke  kept  up  a  resolute  but  ineffectual 
struggle  against  the  wrong-headedncss  of  the  government. 

Meanwhile  he  purchased  an  estate  called  (iregories,  comprising  about 
six  hundred  acres  of  good  land,  Iving  near  the  town  of  Beaconslield,  and 
some  twenty-four  miles  from  London.  The  mansion,  which  was  some- 
thing of  a  palace  in  si/e  and  appearance,  he  fitted  up  in  a  style  of  modest 
splendour,  not  unsuited  to  the  high  circles,  social,  literary,  and  political, 
in  which  he  moved.  Here  he  settled  down  with  his  family,  in  the  Spring 
of  17t',s,  to  m _rage  in  his  favourite  pursuit  of  agriculture  ;  his  dearest  wish 
having  long  been  to  take  permanent  root  in  English  soil,  and  become  the 
founder  of  a  family.  This  was  henceforth  his  country  home,  and  a  beauti- 
ful home  it  wa>  too  ;  here  he  spent  so  much  of  his  time  as  could  be  spared 
from  his  parliamentary  duties,  which  he  never  neglected;  here  all  his  do- 
me.-tic  happiness,  all  his  private  joyfl  were  centred. 

As  the  doors  of  1'arliamrnt  were  then  closed  against  the  public,  and  no 
reporters  were  admitted,  of  course  IJurke  could  not  from  his  seat  in  the 
House  reach  the  ear  of  the  nation  at  large.  For  this  purpose  he  had  re- 
cour--r  to  the  pen.  A  Mr.  Kuox,  acting  as  the  mouth-piece  of  (Jrenvillc, 
had  put  forth  a  pamphlet  entitled  The  Present  /State  of  the  Nation,  endeav- 
ouring to  show  that  the  country  was  going  to  rack  and  ruin  from  the  aban- 
donment of  the  (irenville  policy.  The  work  would  have  passed  out  of  all 
remembrance  long  ago,  but  for  an  elaborate  replv  which  Burke  set  forth  in 
176l>,  under  the  title  of  Ol>x<  rent  ions  nn  a  Lul>>.  Pult/ii-dt  'on,  &c.  This  was 
such  a  piece  of  political  writing  as  England  had  never  before  seen;  full  of 
profound  and  comprehensive  statesmanship,  displaying  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  every  subject  that  came  within  its  range,  and  anticipating  many 
of  the  most  important  conclusions  which  Adam  Smith  published  some 
seven  years  later  in  his  great  work  on  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  This  was 
followed,  in  1770.  bv  a  still  greater  work  entitled  Thotif/hls  on  the  Cause  of 
.tot  Duoontodt,  which,  though  dealing  with  an  occasional  question, 
abounds  in  matter  of  universal  application,  and  is  among  our  best  text- 
books of  statesmanship  for  all  time.s. 

Of  Uurke's  many  labours  in  Parliament,  not  the  least  memorable  was 
in  connection  with  a  long  and  hard  struggle  for  the  freedom  of  the  Pros. 
The  rea-ons  \\ere  growing  stronger  everv  dav  whv  the  proceedings  of  the 
'.wo  Houses  .should  be  freelv  laid  before  the  public;  but  the  House  of  Com- 
mons insisted  on  treating  such  publication  as  a  breach  of  privilege,  and 
went  to  waging  an  ill-timed  war  on  certain  printers.  IJurke  took  the  lead 
in  this  contest;  which  was  finally  brought  to  a  close  in  1771  by  an  indirect 
but  effectual  assertion  of  the  Liberty  of  the  Pros  as  the  daily  chronicler  of 
public  events,  including  the,  deliates'in  Parliament.  Thus  he  bore  a  leading 
part  in  giving  birth  to  what  is  aptly  called  the  Fourth  Estate.  After  the 
measure  was  carried,  Burke,  foreseeing  the  vast  consequences  to  flow  from 
it,  uttered  the  remark,  •' Posterity  will  bless  the,  pertinacity  of  that  day." 

Burke  had  been  twice  elected  member  for  Wendover  through  the  influ- 
ence of  Lord  Vcrncy.  But  when,  in  1774,  the  time  came  for  a  third  elec- 


6  KURKE. 

tion,  Lord  Verney's  affairs  were  so  deeply  embarrassed,  that  he  had  to 
sock  out  some  men  of  wealth  for  the  seats  in  his  pi  ft.  Thereupon  Lord 
Rockingham.  placed  his  own  borough  of  Mai  ton  at  Burke's  disposal.  Just 
as  the  election  was  over,  a  deputation  came  on  from  Bristol,  earnestly  re- 
questing him  to  be  one  of  the  candidates  for  that  city.  As  all  his  friends 
agreed  it  were  much  better  he  should  be  one  of  the  two  representatives  for 
that  large  and  influential  constituency,  he  posted  off  at  once  to  attend  tho 
canvass  there,  and  was  elected. 

All  through  these  years,  the  American  question  held  perhaps  the  fore- 
most place  in  the  parliamentary  debates.  Though  it  was  almost  hopeless 
to  struggle  against  the  course  of  the  Ministry,  Burke  kept  up  his  champi- 
onship of  the  Colonies.  Two  of  his  great  speeches  in  this  behalf,  that  on 
American  Taxation,  and  that  on  Conciliation  with  America,  delivered  April 
19,  1774,  and  .March  22,  1775,  were  carefully  written  out  and  publi>hed  by 
himself.  Of  his  many  other  speeches  on  the  subject,  only  a  tew  notes  and 
fragments  have  been  preserved,  and  room  cannot  here  be  spared  for  com- 
ment on  them.  One  of  them,  however,  it  would  be  hardly  right  to  pass 
over.  On  the  6th  of  February,  1778,  he  made  a  motion  for  papers  touch- 
ing the  employment  of  the  Indians  in  the  war,  and  spoke  upwards  of  three 
hours  in  support  of  the  motion.  One  of  his  stnmgot  points  \\-us  in  reply 
to  the  assertion  that  the  Colonists  were  ready  to  employ  them,  lie  urged 
that,  if  the  Americans  used  the  Indians  as  allies,  they  could  only  set  them 
upon  the  King's  disciplined  troops, who  were  al>le  to  defend  themselves  ;  \\  hile 
to  employ  them  against  the  Colonists,  was  abandoning  unprotected  women 
and  children  to  the  cruelties  of  the  war-whoop  and  tin:  scalping-knife,  wher- 
ever those  savages  pursued  their  career.  The  galleries  of  the  House  were 
closed  that  day,  and  no  trustworthy  report  of  the  speech  was  made;  but  all 
who  heard  it  agreed  that  it  surpassed  any  of  his  pre\  ions  efforts;  and  Sir 
George  Savile,  a  most  competent  judge,  pronounced  it  the  noble.-t  triumph 
of  eloquence  within  human  memory.  At  Burke's  ludicrous  parody  on 
Burgoyne's  proclamation  to  the  Indians,  even  Lord  North  him>elf  was 
almost  bursting  with  laughter;  while,  in  the  more  pathetic  parts,  tears  liko 
those  which  rolled  down  the  iron  cheeks  of  Pinto  suffused  the  grim  features 
of  Colonel  Barre,  who,  in  his  military  career,  had  himself  experienced  the 
horrors  of  Indian  warfare,  lie  urged'  Burke  to  publish  the  speech,  and  de- 
clared that,  if  this  were  done,  he  would  go  him.-elf  and  nail  it  up  on  every 
church-door  in  the  kingdom  beside  the  royal  Proclamation  for  a  general 
fasten  the  27th  of  the  month.  And  Governor  Johnstone  congratulated 
the  Ministry  on  having  hud  the  galleries  closed  that  day,  lest  the  public 
feelings  should  have  been  wrought  up  to  such  a  pitch  as  might  have  been 
fatal  to  the  lives  of  the  Ministers. 

On  the  final  triumph  of  the  American  cause  in  1782,  the  Ministry  of 
Lord  North  came  to  an  end,  and  the  Marquess  of  Kockingham  was  again 
called  to  the  office  of  Prime  Minister.  Burke  then  became  Paymaster  of 
the  Forces,  but  had  no  seat  in  the  Cabinet,  t'p  to  that  time,  the  Paymas- 
ter, besides  his  regular  salary,  had  had  the  use  of  the  money  appropriated 
to  the  military  service.  This  gave  him  a  very  large  income,  sometimes  not 
less  than  .t'40.000  a-year.  In  accordance  with  a  plan  which  he  had  him- 
self proposed  some  two  years  before,  Burke  now  insisted  on  a  total  reform 
in  his  department,  accepting  only  the  regular  salary,  the  u.-c  of  the  money 
to  go  to  the  service  of  the  State.  But  the  death  of  Rockingham  on  the 
30th  of  June  following  put  an  end  to  the  Ministry.  The  verv  dav  before 
the  Marquess  died,  he  had  a  codicil  added  to  his  will,  expres.-lv  cancelling 
every  paper  that  might  be  found  containing  an  acknowledgment  of  debt 
due  to  him  from  his  "  admirable  friend  Edmund  Burke."  How  far  his 
bounty  to  Burke  had  extended,  is  not  precisely  known;  but  it  is  supposed 
to  have  reached  the  sum  of  about  ,£30,000. 

Perhaps  I  should  here  remark  that  the  people  of  Bristol  became  dis>ati.->- 


SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE.  7 

fiecl  with  Burke  on  account  of  his  persevering  efforts  to  lighten  tho  bur- 
dens and  oppressions  of  his  native  Ireland.  So,  in  the  fall  of  1780,  after 
being  their  representative  for  six  years,  he  found  the  current  there  so 
strong  against  him,  that  he  withdrew  from  the  canvass;  but  was  forthwith 
returned  again  for  Malton,  which  borough  he  continued  to  represent  dur- 
ing the  rot  of  his  twenty-eight  years  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

The  Spring  of  178.'}  witnessed  the  formation  of  what  was  called  the  Coa- 
lition Ministry,  Avhich  was  composed  of  men  of  several  parties.  Burke 
again  became'  Paymaster,  still  without  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet^  But  the 
Ministry  proved  an  ill-starred  arrangement,  and  soon  went  to  pieces;  and 
Burke's  greatest  political  mistake  was  the  part  he  took  in  forming  it. 

Sonic  time  before  this,  he  began  to  interest  himself  deeply  in  the  wrongs 
of  India.  Jlis  sensibilities,  always  most  keenly  alive  to  the  sufferings  of 
others,  got  wrought  up  to  an  extraordinary  pitch  in  this  behalf.  On  the 
30th  of  July,  17S4,  he  brought  the  matter  before  Parfiament,  and  in  tho 
course  of  that  dav  made  no  less  than  four  speeches,  ever  growing  more  ve- 
hement as  he  went  on,  and  in  each  denouncing  woe  and  vengeance  on  the 
nation  which  allowed  such  iniquities  to  go  unpunished;  and  he  made  a 
solemn  oath  before  the  House  that  the  wrongs  done  to  humanity  in  tho 
Fast  should  be  avenged  on  the  authors  of  them.  For  several  years  lie  gave 
his  whole  soul  to  this  cause,  prosecuting  it  with  incredible  industry  and  en- 
ergy. All  through  the.  arraignment  and  trial  of  Warren  Hastings,  u  hich 
hisf'ed  some  ten  \ears,  he  was  the  leader  and  the  master-spirit.  It  is  true, 
both  hi-  -  of  genius  and  his  rectitude  of  purpose,  were  sometimes 

not  a  little  ob.-cured  by  his  inlirmilies  of  temper  :  in  his  raptures  of  pro- 
phetic fury,  he  was  sometimes  the  pity  of  his  friends  and  the  derision 
of  his  enemies;  but  time  has  amply  proved  that  his  folly  was  wiser  than 
the  v»  i-dom  of  all  who  maligned  or  oppo.-ed  him.  The  trial  ended,  to  bo 
sure,  in  a  formal  acquittal  of  Hastings.  This  made  his  long  labour  seem 
a  failure;  and  he  himself  >o  considered  it.  But  it  was  in  effect,  a  grand 
:  f..r  it  wrought  a  silent  but  thorough  change  in  the  government  of 
India,  and  may  be  justly  regarded  as  having  saved  the  British  empire  in 
the  1 

I- '...in  the  Summer  of  1784  to  that  of  1789  Burke  was  probably  the  most 
unpopular  man  in  F.ngland.  At  every  turn  he  was  met  by  the  most^in- 
•1  hostility;  from  week  to  week  he  was  hunted  down  by^thc  most 
unrelenting  obloquy.  This  was  indeed  partly  owing  to  his  own  intemper- 
ance of  conduct,  foV  his  great  warm  heart  kept  boiling  at  the  cruelties  and 
inifjiiitics  he  had  undertaken  to  expose;  but  it  was  chiefly  because  he  held 
himself  unflinchingly  to  the  tn-k  of  speaking  odious  truth.  At  length,  the 
outbreak  nf  the.  French  Involution,  in  178'.),  trave  things  a  new  turn,  and 
brought  about,  an  entire  recast  of  parties  in  Fngland.  Burke  seems  for  a 
while  to  have,  been  struck  dumb  by  that  tremendous  social  and  political 
whirlwind;  hut  he:  watched  its  progress  A\  ith  the  utmost  concentration  of 
mind.  Knrly  in  February,  17'M),  the,  subject  came  up  incidentally  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  when  Burke  astounded  both  the  House  and  the  na- 
tion by  his  strong  declarations  of  judgment.  Up  to  this  time,  be  and 
-  Fo\  b:id  b'-cn  |':i~t  /in/ii.'ni/  friends  ; — I  say  political,  for  Fox  was 
too  profligate  in  his  morals  for  tho  personal  friend-hip  of  such  a  man  u< 
Burke.  But  Fox  :md  the  younger  portion  of  the  Whins  were  now  whirled 
awav  with  the  new  revohuionarv  enthusiasm.  A  most  decided  and  ineura- 
!)'••  rupture  ber\\ei-u  F«x  and  Burke  was  the  consequence.  As  things  in 
France  kept  growing  on  from  bud  to  worse,  Burke's  feelings  got  so  wrought 
up,  that,  he  declared  he  would  break  with  his  dearest  friends,  and  join 
bauds  with  his  bitterest,  foes,  on  that  question.  In  short,  his  great  mind, 
through  all  it>  faculties,  was  fired  into  extraordinary  activity  on  that  all- 
abeorbing  theme.  A  Fivm-h  gentleman,  whose  acquaintance  he,  had  made 
borne  time  before,  requested  an  expression  of  his  judgment  on  the  doings  ill 


8  BURKE. 

France.  This  seems  to  have  kindled  and  started  in  him  a  regular  train  of 
thought;  and  the  result  appeared  in  his  Inflections  on  the  Revolution  in 
France,  published  in  the  Fall  of  1790.  This  marvellous  production  carried 
all  before  it,  and  the  name  of  Edmund  Burke  suddenly  became  greater  and 
more  powerful  than  it  had  ever  been.  It  was  the  theme  of  every  tongue  ; 
hardly  any  thing  else  was  talked  of  or  read  ;  edition  after  edition  was  called 
for;  and  thirty  thousand  copies  were  soon  in  the  hands  of  the  pub.ie.  Nor 
was  its  effect  confined  to  England ;  "all  Europe  rung  from  side  to  side" 
with  the  fame  of  it. 

From  this  time  forward  his  powers  were  mainly  concentrated  on  the  same 
great  theme,  the  opposition  to  him  being  of  just  the  right  kind  and  degree 
to  keep  his  mind  in  a  steady  glow.  His  A ppml  from  the.  Nnctot/ie  Old 
W/iifjs,  his  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord,  his  four  Letters  on  a  R<rjicidc  J'-arr,  and 
several  other  papers,  were  the  fruits  of  this  most  discursive  and  far-sighted 
inspiration  :  in  fact,  lie  may  almost  be  said  to  have  expired  with  hi-;  pen  in 
hand,  tracing  out  some  branch  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  England's  duty 
and  interest  in  the  awful  crisis  that  had  arisen. 

In  July,  1794,  Burke  retired  finally  from  Parliament,  and  his  son  liich- 
ard,  then  thirty-six  years  old,  and  the  only  survivor  of  two  children,  was 
elected  to  succeed  him  as  member  for  Malton.  This  was  :in  occasion  of 
great  joy  to  the  father  ;  hut,  alas!  that  joy  was  soon  turned  to  sorrow.  (Mi 
the  2(1  of  August,  Kichard  died.  This  event  was  a  perfect  surprise  to  his 
parents;  who,  though  his  health  had  long  been  delicate,  were  quite  unpre- 
pared for  his  death.  Young  Burke  was  a  man  of  great  promise  and  spot- 
less character:  his  native  gifts  were  of  a  high  order;  his  attainment-;  were 
large;  atid  every  thing  about  him  was  solid,  except  his  physical  constitu- 
tion :  he  was  the  pride  of  his  father's  heart,  the  delight  of  his  father's  eves; 
and  probably  his  gifts  and  virtues  were  somewhat  magnitied  by  parental 
partiality.  The  shock  was  quite  too  much  for  Burke,  and  he  never  recov- 
ered from  it:  he  was  literally  overwhelmed  with  grief,  and  remained  to  the 
hour  of  his  own  death  utterlv  uneotisolablc.  The  last  two  of  his  Letters  on 
a  R«ii<-idc  Pence  were  written  under  a  sense  of  impending  death;  and  he 
expired  on  the-  morning  of  Sunday,  July  9,  1797,  his  last  breath  being 
spent  in  blessing  those  who  were  about  him.  lie  died  "  in  the  confidence 
of  a  certain  faith,  in  the  comfort  of  a  reasonable,  religions,  and  holy  hope." 
Dr.  Laurence,  who  was  present,  tells  us  that  ''his  end  was  suited  to  tho 
simple  greatness  of  his  mind,  every  way  unaffected,  without  levity,  without 
ostentation,  full  of  natural  grace  and  dignity." 

Burke's  life,  both  public  and  private,  was  without  a  stain  :  his  goodness 
of  heart,  his  beauty  of  character,  were  in  full  measure  with  his  greatness  of 
intellect:  his  greatest  pleasure  was  in  being  kind  to  such  as  needed  kind- 
ness, and  especially  in  lending  a  helping  hand  to  struirglinir  and  unrecog- 
nised genius  and  merit :  James  Barry  the  painter-artist  and  George  Cmbbo 
the  poet  owed  their  deliverance  from  suffering  and  1-hscuriry  to  his  discrim- 
inating benevolence:  Dr.  Johnson,  Sir  Joshua  Bevnoids,  Goldsmith,  Lang- 
ton,  and  his  other  fellow-members  of  the  celebrated  Club,  loved  and  hon- 
oured him  deeplv.  In  1844,  when  his  Correspondence  WAS  published,  Lord 
Jeffrey,  of  the  Edutburgft  Rcricw,  who,  sympathizing  with  the  Holland- 
House  Whigs,  had  always  been  wont  to  disparage  Burke,  spoke  of  him  as 
follows:  "The  greatest  and  most  accomplished  intellect  that  England  has 
produced  for  centuries  ;  and  of  a  noble  and  lovable  nature." 

Burke's  relative  place  in  English  literature  is  not  altogether  certain.  Of 
course  Shakespeare  is,  beyond  all  comparison,  first ;  but  it  is  something 
doubtful  whether  the  second  place  belongs  to  Burke  or  Bacon.  Intellect- 
ually, the  two  have  strong  points  of  resemblance;  there,  however,  the  like- 
ness* ends:  for  Burke  had  not  a  tinge  or  shade  of  meanness  in  his  composi- 
tion ;  his  nobleness  of  character  was  every  way  commensurate  with  his 
strength  and  splendour  of  genius. 


EDMUND     BURKE. 


LETTER  TO  THE  SHERIFFS  OF  BRISTOL.1 

GENTLEMEN:  I  have  the  honour  of  sending  you  the  two  last 
Acts  which  have  been  passed  with  regard  to  the  troubles  in 
America.  These  Acts  are  similar  to  all  the  rest  which  have 
been  made  on  the  same  subject.  They  operate  by  the  same 
principle,  and  they  are  derived  from  the  very  same  policy.  I 
think  they  complete  the  number  of  this  sort  of  statutes  to  nine. 
It  affords  no  matter  for  very  pleasing  reflection  to  observe  that 
our  subjects  diminish  as  our  laws  increase. 

If  I  have  the  misfortune  of  differing  with  some  of  my  fellow- 
citizens  on  this  great  and  arduous  subject,  it  is  no  small  conso- 
lation to  me  that  I  do  not  differ  from  you.  With  you  I  am  per- 
fectly united.  We  are  heartily  agreed  in  our  detestation  of  a 
civil  war.  We  have  ever  expressed  the  most  unqualified  disap- 
probation of  all  the  steps  which  have  led  to  it,  and  of  all  those 
which  tend  to  prolong  it.  And  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  feel 
exactly  the  same  emotions  of  grief  and  shame  on  all  its  misera- 
ble consequences,  whether  they  appear  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  in  the  shape  of  victories  or  defeats,  of  captures  made 
from  the  Knglish  on  the  Continent  or  from  the  English  in  these 
islands,  of  legislative  regulations  which  subvert  the  liberties  of 
our  iirethren,  or  which  undermine  our  own. 

Of  the  first  of  these  statutes  (that  for  the  letter  of  marque)  I 
shall  say  little.-  Kxceptionable  as  it  may  be,  and  as  I  think  it 
is  in  some  particulars,  it  seems  the  natural,  perhaps  necessary, 
result  of  the  measures  we  have  taken  and  the  situation  we  are 
in.  The  other  (for  a  partial  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus) 

1  The  full  title  <»f  this  paper  as  originally  published  is  "A  Letter  to  John 
Farr  and  John  Harris,  Ksqrri.,  Sheriffs  of  the  City  of  Bristol,  on  the  Affairs  of 
America.     1777." 

2  A  let  to  i-  of  marque  is,  in  effect,  a  special  commission  granted  by  the  govern- 
nientot'a  l><  /Itinerant  StaU;  to  tlte  commander  of  a  vessel,  authorizing  him  to 
rapture  and  take  pu»rssion  of  any  ships  belonging  to  the  enemy  wherever  he 
may  find  them.    Of  course!  .sei/ures  so  made,  being  sanctioned  by  international 
law,  are  not  subject  to  the  charge  of  piracy. 


10  BURKE. 

appears  to  me  of  a  much  deeper  malignity.3  Dtfring  its  progress 
through  the  House  of  Commons,  it  has  been  amended,  so  as  to 
express,  more  distinctly  than  at  first  it  did,  the  avowed  senti- 
ments of  those  who  framed  it ;  and  the  main  ground  of  my  ex- 
ception to  it  is,  because  it  does  express,  and  does  carry  into 
execution,  purposes  which  appear  to  me  contradictory  t«»  all 
the  principles,  not  only  of  the  constitutional  policy  of  Great 
Britain,  but  even  of  that  species  of  hostile  justice  which  no  as- 
perity of  war  wholly  extinguishes  in  the  minds  of  a  civilized 
people. 

It  seems  to  have  in  view  two  capital  objects:  the  (ir>t,  to  ena- 
ble administration  to  confine,  as  long  as  it  shall  think  proper, 
those  whom  that  Act  is  pleased  to  qualify  by  the  name  of  i>u-<(t(  s. 
Those  so  qualified  I  understand  to  be  the  commanders  and  mari- 
ners of  such  privateers  and  ships  of  war  belonging  to  the  colo- 
nies as  in  the  course  of  this  unhappy  contest  may  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  Crown.  They  are  therefore  to  be  detained  in  prison, 
under  the  criminal  description  of  piracy,  t»  a  future  trial  and 
ignominious  punishment,  whenever  circumstances  shall  make 
it  convenient  to  execute  vengeance  on  them,  under  the  colour 
of  that  odious  and  infamous  offence. 

To  this  first  purpose  of  the  law  I  have  no  small  dislike,  be- 
cause the  Act  does  not  (as  all  laws  and  all  equitable  transactions 
ought  to  do)  fairly  describe  its  object.  The  persons  who  make 
a  naval  war  upon  us,  in  consequence  of  the  present  troubles, 
may  be  rebels  ;  but  to  call  and  treat  them  as  pirates  is  confound- 
ing not  only  the  natural  distinction  of  things,  but  the  order  of 
crimes,  —  which,  whether  by  putting  them  from  a  higher  part 

3  This  famous  statute,  called  Habeas  Corpus  because  writs  issued  in  pursu- 
ance of  it  formerly  began  with  those  two  words,  wa-  passe-1  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  1G79.  It  was  meant  as  an  effective  remedy,  and  su<  h  it 
has  proved  to  be,  against  arbitrary  imprisonment,  that  is,  the  punishment  of 
alleged  or  imputed  crimes,  without  a  trial  or  a  hearing.  From  a  very  early  pe- 
riod, such  imprisonment  was  indeed  unlawful  in  England;  but  the  servile  inge- 
nuity of  crown  lawyers  still  found  out  ways  of  eluding  the  law  :  so  that,  if  the 
King  or  any  of  his  favorites  had  a  grudge  again.»t  a  person,  he  could  lubricate  a 
criminal  charge,  and  have  him  incarcerated;  and  there  he  was,  without  remedy 
or  redress,  as  he  could  not  bring  the  question  of  his  guilt  or  innocence  to  a  trial. 
But,  by  this  Act,  a  person  so  held,  or  his  friends,  might  apply  to  any  one  of  the 
judges,  and  on  such  application  the  judge  was  obliged,  under  heavy  penalties, 
to  issue  his  writ  requiring  the  custodian  to  bring  forth  the  body  of  the  prisoner, 
together  with  the  warrant  for  committal,  into  court,  that  he,  the  judge,  might 
determine  of  its  sufficiency,  and  either  remand  the  accu.-ed  t<>  prison,  admit  him 
to  bail,  or  discharge  him,  according  to  the  merits  of  the  case.  And  any  oilicer 
or  jailer  to  whom  such  writ  was  directed  was  also  bound,  under  severe  penal- 
ties, to  prompt  obedience.  Thus,  among  all  English-speaking  peoples,  the  Act 
in  question  stands  to  this  day  the  main  security  of  personal  freedom  against  op- 
pressive power. 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  11 

of  the  scale  to  the  lower  or  from  the  lower  to  the  higher,  is 
never  done  without  dangerously  disordering  the  whole  frame  of 
jurisprudence.  Though  piracy  may  be,  in  the  eye  of  the  law, 
a  less  offence  than  treason,  yet,  as  both  are,  in  effect,  punished 
with  the  same  death,  the  same  forfeiture,  and  the  same  corrup- 
tion of  blood,  I  never  would  take,  from  any  fellow-creature 
whatever,  any  sort  of  advantage  which  he  may  derive  to  his 
safety  from  the  pity  of  mankind,  or  to  his  reputation  from  their 
general  feelings,  by  degrading  his  offence,  when  I  cannot  soften 
his  punishment.  The  general  sense  of  mankind  tells  me  that 
those  offences  which  may  possibly  arise  from  mistaken  virtue 
are  not  in  the  class  of  infamous  actions.  Lord  Coke,  the  oracle 
of  the  English  law,  conforms  to  that  general  sense,  where  he 
says  that  "those  thing-*  which  are  of  the  highest  criminality 
may  be  of  the  least  disgrace."  The  Act  prepares  a  sort  of 
masked  proceeding,  not  honourable  to  the  justice  of  the  king- 
dom, and  by  no  means  necessary  for  its  safety.  I  cannot  enter 
into  it.  If  Lord  Balmeriuo,  in  the  last  rebellion,  had  driven  off 
the  cattle  of  twenty  clans,  I  should  have  thought  it  would  have 
been  a  scandalous  and  low  juggle,  utterly  unworthy  of  the  man- 
liness of  an  English  judicature,  to  have  tried  him  for  felony  as 
a  stealer  of  cows.4 

Besides,  I  must  honestly  tell  you  that  I  could  not  vote  for,  or 
countenance  in  any  way,  a  statute  which  stigmatizes  with  the 
crime  of  piracy  these  men  whom  an  Act  of  Parliament  had  pre- 
viously put  out  of  the  protection  of  the  law.  When  the  legisla- 
ture of  this  kingdom  had  ordered  all  their  ships  and  goods,  for 
the  mere  new-created  olTence  of  exercising  trade,  to  be  divided 
as  ;i  spoil  among  the  seamen  of  the  navy,6 — to  consider  the 
ueces.strv  reprisal  of  an  unhappy,  proscribed,  interdicted  peo- 
ple, as  the  crime  of  piracy,  would  have  appeared,  in  any  other 
]<--islature  than  ours,  a  strain  of  the  most  insulting  and  most 
unnatural  cruelty  and  injustice.  I  assure  you  I  never  remem- 
ber to  have  hoard  of  any  thing  like  it  in  anytime  or  country. 

The  second  professed  purpose  of  the  Act  is  to  detain  in  Eng- 
land for  trial  those  who  shall  commit  high  treason  in  America. 

4  Lord  Balmerino  was  a  Scottish  nobleman,  who  took  part  with  Charles  Ed- 
wan],  commonly  railed  the,  Pretender,   in  his  attempt  to  regain  the  British 
tin-one.    At  the  battle  of  Culloden,  in  1T4.">,  where  that  attempt  was  crushed, 
Balmerino  was  taken  prisoner,  and  was  afterwards  tried,  convicted,  and  exe- 
cuted/w  treason. 

5  J5y  the  Act  of  Parliament  here  referred  to,  all  the  property  of  Americans, 
whether  of  ships  or  goods,  on  the  high  seas  or  in  harbour,  was  declared  "  to  be 
forfeited  to  the  raptors,  bring  the  ollirers  and  crews  of  his  Majesty's  ships  of 
war."    This  Act  was  supplementary  to  another  which  had  interdicted  all  trade 
to  the  colonists,  thus  making  commerce  a  crime. 


12  BURKE. 

That  you  may  be  enabled  to  enter  into  the  true  spirit  of  the 
present  law,  it  is  necessary,  Gentlemen,  to  apprise  you  that 
there  is  an  Act,  made  so  long  ago  as  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the 
Eighth,  before  the  existence  or  thought  of  any  English  colonies 
in  America,  for  the  trial  in  this  kingdom  of  treason  committed 
out  of  the  realm.  In  the  year  1709  Parliament  thought  proper 
to  acquaint  the  Crown  with  their  construction  of  that  Act  in  a 
formal  address,  wherein  they  entreated  his  Majesty  to  cause 
persons  charged  with  high  treason  in  America  to  be  brought 
into  this  kingdom  for  trial.  By  this  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth, 
so  construed  and  so  applied,  almost  all  that  is  substantial  and 
beneficial  in  a  trial  by  jury  is  taken  away  from  the  subject  in 
the  colonies.0  This  is,  however,  saying  too  little ;  for  to  try  a 
man  under  that  Act  is,  in  effect,  to  condemn  him  unheard.  A 
person  is  brought  hither  in  the  dungeon  of  a  ship's  ^old;  thence 
he  is  vomited  into  a  dungeon  on  land,  loaded  with  irons,  unfur- 
nished with  money,  unsupported  by  friends,  three  thousand 
miles  from  all  means  of  calling  upon  or  confronting  evidence, 
where  no  one  local  circumstance  that  tends  to  detect  perjury 
can  possibly  be  judged  of ;  —  such  a  person  may  be  executed  ac- 
cording to  form,  but  he  can  never  be  tried  according  to  justice. 

I  therefore  could  never  reconcile  myself  to  the  bill  I  send 
you,  which  is  expressly  provided  to  remove  all  inconveniences 
from  the  establishment  of  a  mode  of  trial  which  has  ever  ap- 
peared to  me  most  unjust  and  most  unconstitutional.  Far  from 
removing  the  difficulties  which  impede  the  execution  of  so  mis- 
chievous a  project,  I  would  heap  new  difficulties  upon  it,  if  it 
were  in  my  power.  All  the  ancient,  honest  juridical  principles 
and  institutions  of  England  are  so  many  clogs  to  check  and 
retard  the  headlong  course  of  violence  and  oppression.  They 
were  invented  for  this  one  good  purpose,  that  what  was  not 
just  should  not  be  convenient.  Convinced  of  this,  I  would  leave 
things  as  I  found  them.  The  old,  cool-headed,  general  law  is 
as  good  as  any  deviation  dictated  by  present  heat. 

I  could  see  no  fair,  justifiable  expedience  pleaded  to  favour 
this  new  suspension  of  the  liberty  of  the  subject.  If  the  English 
in  the  colonies  can  support  the  independency  to  which  they 
have  been  unfortunately  driven,  I  suppose  nobody  has  such  a 
fanatical  zeal  for  the  criminal  justice  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  that 
he  will  contend  for  executions  which  must  be  retaliated  tenfold 
on  his  own  friends,  or  who  has  conceived  so  strange  an  idea  of 
English  dignity  as  to  think  the  defeats  in  America  compensated 

(5  The  purpose  of  this  old  statute  was  to  provide  for  the  trial  and  punishment, 
in  England,  of  crimes  committed  at  sea,  and  which  must  be  tried  and  puiiMu-d 
in  England,  or  not  at  all.  To  apply  this  Act  to  the  colonists  was  indeed  a  mon- 
strous perversion. 


LETTER   TO   THE   SHERIFFS  ^F   BRISTOL.  13 

by  the  triumphs  at  Tyburn.7  If,  on  th^  contrary,  the  colonies 
are  reduced  to  the  obedience  of  the  Crown,  there  must  be,  under 
that  authority,  tribunals  in  the  country  itself  fully  competent 
to  administer  justice  on  all  offenders.  But  if  there  are  not,  and 
that  we  must  suppose  a  thing  so  humiliating  to  our  government 
as  that  all  this  vast  continent  should  unanimously  concur  in 
thinking  that  no  ill  fortune  can  convert  resistance  to  the  royal 
authority  into  a  criminal  act,  we  may  call  the  effect  of  our  vic- 
tory peace,  or  obedience,  or  what  we  will,  but  the  war  is  not 
ended;  the  hostile  mind  continues  in  full  vigour,  and  it  con- 
tinues under  a  worse  form.  If  your  peace  be  nothing  more  t  ban 
a  snlien  pause  from  arms,  if  their  quiet  be  nothing  but  the  med- 
itation of  revenge,  where  smitten  pride  smarting  from  its  wounds 
-  into  ne\v  rancour,  neither  the  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth 
nor  its  handmaid  <>f  this  ivign  will  answer  any  wise  end  of  policy 
or  justice.  For,  if  the  bloody  fields  which  they  saw  and  felt 
are  not  Miflirient  to  subdue  the  reason  of  America,  (to  use  the 
expressive  phrase  of  a  great  lord  in  oliice, )  it  is  not  the  judicial 
Slaughter  which  is  made  in  another  hemisphere  against  their 
universal  sense  of  justice  that  will  ever  reconcile  them  to  the 
.British  government. 

1  take  it  for  -ranted,  (Jentleineii.  that  we  sympathize  in  a 
proper  horror  of  all  punishment  further  than  as  it  serves  for  an 
exMnple.  To  whom,  then,  does  the  example  of  an  execution  in 
England  for  this  American  rebellion  apply?  Piemember,  you 
are  told  everyday,  that  the  present  is  a  contest  between  the  two 
countries,  and  that  we  in  Kngland  are  at  war  for  our  own  dignity 
against  our  rebellious  children.  Is  this  true?  If  it  be,  it  is 
surely  among  such  rebellious  children  that  examples  for  disobe- 
dience should  be  made,  to  be  in  any  degree  instructive  :  for  who 
ever  thought  of  teaching  parents  their  duty  by  an  example  from 
the  punishment  of  an  undutiful  son?  As  well  might  the  exe- 
cution of  a  fugitive  negro  in  the  plantations  be  considered  as  a 
to  teach  masters  humanity  to  their  slaves.  Such  execu- 
tions may  indeed  satiate  our  revenge;  they  may  harden  our 
hearts,  and  puff  us  up  with  pride  and  arrogance.  Amo  j  tnis 
is  not  instruction. 

If  any  thing  can  be  drawn  from  such  examples  by  a  parity  of 
the  case,  it  N  to  show  how  deep  their  crime  and  how  heavy  their 
punishment  will  be,  who  shall  at,  any  time  <  la  re  to  resist  a  dis- 
tant power  a-tually  di-pos'mg  of  their  property  without  their 
\oiceorconseiit  to  the  disposition,  and  overturning  their  fran- 
chises without  charge  or  hearing.  God  forbid  that  England 

r  Tyburn  was  ;i  place  in  or  near  London  where  persons  convicted  of  capital 
Crimea  were  executed. 


14  BURKE. 

should  ever  read  this  lesson  written  in  the  blood  of  any  of  her 
offspring ! 

War  is  at  present  carried  on  between  the  King's  natural  and 
foreign  troops,  on  one  side,  and  the  English  in  America,  on  the 
other,  upon  the  usual  footing  of  other  wars ;  and  accordingly 
an  exchange  of  prisoners  has  been  regularly  made  from  the  be- 
ginning. If,  notwithstanding  this  hitherto  equal  procedure, 
upon  some  prospect  of  ending  the  war  with  success  (  which  how- 
ever may  be  delusive)  administration  prepares  to  act  against 
those  as  traitors  who  remain  in  their  hands  at  the  end  of  the 
troubles,  in  my  opinion  we  shall  exhibit  to  the  world  as  inde- 
cent a  piece  of  injustice  as  ever  civil  fury  has  produced.  If  the 
prisoners  who  have  been  exchanged,  have  not  by  that  exchange 
been  virtually  ]KiriI<m«l,  the  cartel  (  whether  avowed  or  under- 
stood) is  a  cruel  fraud  ;  for  you  have  received  the  fee  of  a  man, 
and  you  ought  to  return  a  life  for  it,  or  there  is  no  parity  or 
fairness  in  the  transaction. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  admit  that  they  who  are  actually  ex- 
changed are  pardoned,  but  contend  that  you  may  justly  reserve 
for  vengence  those  who  remain  unexchanged,  then  this  un- 
pleasant and  unhandsome  consequence  will  follow, —that  you 
judge  of  the  delinquency  of  men  merely  by  the  time  of  their 
guilt,  and  not  by  the  heinousness  of  it ;  and  you  make  fortune 
and  accidents,  and  not  the  moral  qualities  of  human  action, 
the  rule  of  your  justice. 

These  strange  incongruities  must  ever  perplex  those  who  con- 
found the  unhappiness  of  civil  dissention  with  the  crime  of 
treason.  Whenever  a  rebellion  really  and  truly  exists,  which 
is  as  easily  known  in  fact  as  it  is  difficult  to  define  in  words, 
government  has  not  entered  into  such  military  conventions,  but 
ha^ever  declined  all  intermediate  treaty  which  should  put 
rebels  in  possession  of  the  law  of  nations  with  regard  to  war. 
Commanders- would  receive  no  benefits  at  their  hands,  because 
they  could  make  no  return  for  them.  Who  has  ever  heard  of 
capitulation,  and  parole  of  honour,  and  exchange  of  prisoners 
in  the  late  rebellions  in  this  kingdom?  The  answer  to  all  de- 
mands of  that  sort  was,  "We  can  engage  for  nothing  ;  you  are 
at  the  King's  pleasure."  We  ought  to  remember  that,  it"  our 
present  enemies  be  in  reality  and  truth  rebels,  the  King's  gen- 
erals have  no  right  to  release  them  upon  any  conditions  what- 
soever ;  and  they  are  themselves  answerable  to  the  law,  and  as 
much  in  want  of  a  pardon,  for  doing  so,  as  the  rebels  whom  they 
release. 

Lawyers,  I  know,  cannot  make  the  distinction  for  which  I 
contend ;  because  they  have  their  strict  rule  to  go  by.  But  leg- 
islators ought  to  do  what  lawyers  cannot;  for  they  have  no 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF  BRISTOL.  15 

other  rules  to  bind  them  but  the  great  principles  of  reason  and 
equity,  and  the  general  sense  of  mankind.  These  they  are 
bound  to  obey  and  follow,  and  rather  to  enlarge  and  enlighten 
law  by  the  liberality  of  legislative  reason  than  to  fetter  and 
bind  their  higher  capacity  by  the  narrow  constructions  of  sub- 
ordinate, artificial  justice.  If  we  had  adverted  to  this,  we  never 
could  consider  the  convulsions  of  a  great  empire,  not  dis- 
turbed by  a  little  disseminated  fart  ion,  but  divided  by  whole 
communities  and  provinces,  and  entire  legal  representatives  of 
a  people,  as  lit  matter  <>t'  discussion  under  a  commission  of  Over 
and  Terminer/  It  is  as  opposite  to  reason  and  prudence  as  it 
is  to  humanity  and  justice. 

This  Act,  proceeding  on  these  principles,  that  is,  preparing  to 
end  the  present  troubles  by  a  trial  of  one  sort  of  hostility  under 
the  name  of  piracy,  and  of  another  by  the  name  of  treason,  and 
executing  the  Act  of  Henry  the  Kighth  according  to  a  now  and 
unconstitutional  interpretation,  I  have  thought  evil  and  dan- 
gerous, even  though  the  in.st rumeiits  of  effecting  such  purposes 
had  been  merely  of  a  neutral  quality. 

But  it  really  appears  to  me  that  the  means  which  this  Act 
employs  are  at  least  as  exceptionable  as  the  end.  Permit  me 
to  open  myself  a  little  upon  this  subject;  because  it  is  of  im- 
portance to  me,  when  I  am  obliged  to  submit  to  the  power 
without  acquiescing  in  the  reason  of  an  Act  of  legislature,  that 
I  should  justify  my  dissent  by  such  arguments  as  may  be  sup- 
posed to  have  weight  with  a  sober  man. 

The  main  operative  regulation  <>f  the  Act  is  to  suspend  thu 

moil   Law  and  the  statute  llulmm  Cnr/>nx  (the  sole  secure 

tfefl  either  for  liberty  or  justice)  with  regard  to  all  those  who 

have  been  out  of  the  realm,  or  on  the  high  seas,  within  a  given 

time.    The  rest   of  the  people,  as  I  understand,  are  to  continue 

as  they  -tood  before. 

I  confess,  (Jentleman,  that  this  appears  to  me  as  bad  in  the 
principle,  and  far  worse  in  it-  consequence,  than  an  universal 
..  nsion  of  the  Halifax  Curium  Act  ;  and  the  limiting  qualili- 
•n,  instead  of  taking  out  the  sting,  does  in  my  humble  opin- 
ion sharpen  and  envenom  it  to  a  greater  degree.  Liberty,  if  I 
understand  it  at  all.  is  a  i/nnn/1.  principle,  and  1  he  clear  right  of 
all  the  subjects  within  the  realm,  or  of  none.  Partial  freedom 
si-em*  to  me  a  most  invidious  mode  of  slavery.  But,  unfortu- 
nat.-ly,  it  is  the  kind  of  slavery  the  most  easily  admitted  in 
times  of  civil  discord  :  for  parties  are,  but  too  apt  to  forget  thoir 
own  future  safety  in  their  desire  of  sacrificing  their  enemies. 

8    Thnt  is,  authority  to  hear  and  determine  legal  causes;  oyer  being  an  old 
>i.nnau-i'rench  word  meaning  to  hear. 


16  BURKE. 

People  without  much  difficulty  admit  the  entrance  of  that  in- 
justice of  which  they  are  not  to  be  the  immediate  victims.  In 
times  of  high  proceeding  it  is  never  the  faction  of  the  predom- 
inant power  that  is  in  danger;  for  no  tyranny  chastises  i; 
instruments.  It  is  the  obnoxious  and  the  suspected  who  want 
the  protection  of  law ;  and  there  is  nothing  to  bridle  the  partial 
violence  of  State  factions  but  this,  —  "that,  whenever  an  Act  is 
made  for  a  cessation  of  law  and  justice,  the  whole  people 
should  be  universally  subjected  to  the  same  suspension  of  their 
franchises."  The  alarm  of  such  a  proceeding  would  then  be 
universal.  It  would  operate  as  a  sort  of  call  <>f  the  nation.  It 
would  become  every  man's  immediate  and  in.-tanl  coneeni  to  be 
made  very  sensible  of  the  absolute  necessiiiurf  this  total  eclipse  of 
liberty.  They  would  more  carefully  advert  to  every  renewal, 
and  more  powerfully  resist  it.  These  great  determined  meas- 
ures are  not  commonly  so  dangerous  to  freedom.  They  are 
marked  with  too  strong  lines  to  slide  into  use.  JS'o  pica,  nor 
pretence,  of  inconn  ni<  art  or  tr',1  i.ctinijtk  (which  must  in  their 
nature  be  daily  and  ordinary  incident-)  can  be  admitted  as  a 
reason  for  such  mighty  operations.  But  the  true  danger  is 
when  liberty  is  nibbled  away,  for  expedients,  and  by  parts. 
The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  supposes,  contrary  to  the  genius  of 
most  other  laws,  that  the  lawful  magistrate  may  see  particular 
men  with  a  malignant  eye,  and  it  provides  for  that  identical 
case.  But  when  men,  in  particular  descriptions,  marked  out  by 
the  magistrate  himself,  arc  delivered  over  by  Parliament  to 
this  possible  malignity,  it  is  not  the  Hula  UK  ( 'nrjiux  that  is  occa- 
sionally suspended,  but  its  spirit  that  is  mistaken,  and  its  prin- 
ciple that  is  subverted.  Indeed,  nothing  is  security  to  any  in- 
dividual but  the  common  interest  of  all. 

This  Act,  therefore,  has  this  distinguished  evil  in  it,  that  it  is 
the  lirst  partial  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  that  has  been 
made.  The  precedent,  which  is  always  of  very  great  impor- 
tance, is  now  established.  For  the  first  time  a  distinction  is 
made  among  the  people  within  this  realm.  Before  thi- 
every man  putting  his  foot  on  English  ground,  every  stranger 
owing  only  a  local  and  temporary  allegiance,  even  negro  slaves 
who  had  been  sold  in  the  colonies  and  under  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, became  as  free  as  every  other  man  who  breathed  the 
same  air  with  them.  .Now  a  line  is  drawn,  which  may  be  ad- 
vanced further  and  further  at  pleasure,  on  the  same  argument 
of  mere  expedience  on  which  it  was  first  described.  There  is  no 
eiiuality  among  us;  we  are  not  fellow-citi/ens,  if  the  mariner 
who  lands  on  the  quay  does  not  rest  on  as  firm  legal  ground  as 
the  merchant  who  sits  in  his  counting-house.  Other  laws  may 
injure  the  community ;  this  dissolves  it.  As  things  now  stand, 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  17 

every  man  in  the  West  Indies,  every  one  inhabitant  of  three 
unoffending  provinces  on  the  continent,  every  person  coming 
from  the  East  Indie-,  every  gentleman  who  has  travelled  for 
his  health  or  education,  every  mariner  who  has  navigated  the 
seas,  is,  for  no  other  offence,  under  a  temporary  proscription. 
Let  any  of  these  facts  (now  become  presumptions  of  guilt)  be 
proved  against  him,  and  the  bare  suspicion  of  the  Crown  puts 
him  out  of  the  law.  It  is  even  by  no  means  clear  to  me  whether 
the  negative  proof  does  not  lie  upon  the  person  apprehended  on 
suspicion,  to  the  subversion  of  all  justice. 

I  have  not  debated  against  this  bill  in  its  progress  through 
the  House,  because  it  would  have  been  vain  to  oppose,  and 
impossible  to  correqt  it.  It  is  some  time  since  I  have  been 
clearly  convinced  that,  in  the  present  state  of  things,  all  oppo- 
sition to  any  measures  proposed  by  .Ministers,  where  the  name 
of  America  appears,  is  vain  and  frivolous.  You  may  be  sure 
that  I  do  not  speak  of  my  opposition,  which  in  all  circumstances 
must  be  so,  but  that  of  men  of  the  greatest  wisdom  and  author- 
ity in  the  nation.  Every  thing  proposed  against  America  is 
supposed  of  course  to  be  in  favour  of  Great  Britain.  Good  and 
ill  success  are  equally  admitted  as  reasons  for  persevering  in 
the  present  methods.  Several  very  prudent  and  very  well- 
intentioned  persons  were  of  opinion  that,  during  the  prevalence 
of  such  dispositions,  all  struggle  rather  inflamed  than  lessened 
the  distemper  of  the  public  counsels.  Finding  such  resistance 
to  be  considered  as  factious  by  most  within  doors  and  by  very 
many  without,  I  cannot  conscientiously  support  what  is  against 
my  opinion,  nor  prudently  contend  with  what  I  know  is  irre- 
sistible. Preserving  my  principles  unshaken,  I  reserve  my 
activity  for  rational  endeavours;  and  I  hope  that  my  past  con- 
duct has  given  sullicient  evidence  that,  if  I  am  a  single  day  from 
my  place,  it  is  not  owing  to  indolence  or  love  of  dissipation. 
The  slightest  hope  of  doing  good  is  sullicient  to  recall  me  to 
what  1  quitted  with  re-ret.  In  declining  for  some  time  my 
u^ual  strict  attendance,  I  do  not  in  the  least  condemn  the  spirit 
hose  gentlemen  who,  with  a  just  confidence  in  their  abilities, 
(  in  which  I  claim  a  sort  of  share  from  my  love  and  admiration 
•re.  of  opinion  that  their  exertions  in  this  desperate 
might  be  of  some  service.  They  thought  that  by  con- 
tnvting  the  sphere  of  it  -  application  they  might  lessen  the  ma- 
lty of  an  evil  principle.  Perhaps  they  were  in  the  right. 
JJut  when  my  opinion  was  so  very  clearly  to  the  contrary,  for 
the  reasons  I  have  just  stated,  i  um  sure  my  attendance  would 
have  been  ridiculous. 'J 

9    In  the  Summer  of  1776,  the  British  had  gained  some  inipurtaut  advantages 


18  BURKE. 

I  must  add,  in  further  explanation  of  my  conduct,  that,  far 
from  softening  the  features  of  such  a  principle,  and  thereby  re- 
moving any  part  of  the  popular  odium  or  natural  terrors  at- 
tending it,  I  should  be  sorry  that  any  thing  framed  in  contra- 
diction to  the  spirit  of  our  Constitution  did  not  instantly  pro- 
duce, in  fact,  the  grossest  of  the  evils  with  which  it  was  preg- 
nant in  its  nature.  It  is  by  lying  dormant  a  long  time,  or  being 
at  first  very  rarely  exercised,  that  arbitrary  power  steals  upon  a 
people.  On  the  next  unconstitutional  Act,  all  the  fashionable 
world  will  be  ready  to  say,  "Your  prophecies  are  ridiculous, 
your  fears  are  vain;  you  see  how  little  of  the  mischiefs  which 
you  formerly  foreboded  are  come  to  pass."  Thus,  by  degrees, 
that  artful  softening  of  all  arbitrary  power,  the  alleged  infre- 
quency  or  narrow  extent  of  its  operation,  will  be  received  as  a 
sort  of  aphorism  ;  and  Mr.  Hume  will  not  be  singular  in  telling 
us  that  the  felicity  of  mankind  is  no  more  disturbed  by  it  than 
by  earthquakes  or  thunder,  or  the  other  more  unusual  acci- 
dents of  Nature. 

The  Act  of  which  I  speak  is  among  the  fruits  of  the  Ameri- 
can war, —  a  war  in  my  humble  opinion  productive  of  many 
mischiefs,  of  a  kind  which  distinguish  it  from  all  others.  Not 
only  our  policy  is  deranged,  and  our  empire  distracted,  but  our 
laws  and  our  legislative  spirit  appear  to  have  been  totally  per- 
verted by  it.  We  have  made  war  on  our  colonies,  not  by  arms 
only,  but  l>y  laws.  As  hostility  and  law  are  not  very  concordant 
ideas,  every  step  we  have  taken  in  this  business  has  been  made 
by  trampling  on  some  maxim  of  justice  or  some  capital  princi- 
ple of  wise  government.  What  precedents  were  established, 
and  what  principles  overturned,  (1  will  not  say  of  English  privi- 
lege, but  of  general  justice,)  in  the  Boston  Tort,  the  Massachu- 
setts Charter,  the  Military  Bill,1  and  all  that  long  array  of 

in  the  war,  especially  the  victory  on  Long  Island,  and  the  possession  of  Now 
York  city.  This  turn  of  success  rendered  the  British  government  and  people 
more  confident  than  ever  of  reducing  the  insurgent  colonies  to  gubmis.-ion  : 
moderation  was  cast  off,  the  voice  of  conciliation  was  drowned  in  songs  of  tri- 
umph, and  the  tide  of  infatuation  ran  to  the  highest  pitch.  This  naturally 
brought  the  opposition  in  Parliament  to  a  point  correspondingly  low;  insomuch 
that  in  the  Fall  and  Winter  following  most  of  the  Koekingham  Whigs,  Burke 
among  them,  carried  out  the  plan  of  partial  secession  which  they  had  for  some 
time  entertained.  They  attended  during  the  hours  of  general  business  in  the 
morning;  but  as  soon  as  the  special  questions  came  up.  they  made  their  bows  to 
the  Speaker,  and  withdrew.  Notwithstanding  the  reasons  given  in  the  text,  the 
act  was  one  of  doubtful  expediency, 

1  Of  these  three  bills,  the  llrst,  hastily  passed  in  1774,  was  for  closing  the  bar- 
bour,  and  thereby  squelching  the  commerce  of  Boston  :  it  prohibited  "the  lad- 
ing  or  unlading  of  all  goods  or  merchandise-  at  any  place  within  the  precincts 
ol' Boston,"  until  the  colony  should  be  brought  to  entire  submission.  The  sec. 


LETTER  TO  THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  19 

hostile  Acts  of  Parliament  by  which  the  war  with  America  has 
been  begun  and  supported  !  Had  the  principles  of  any  of  these 
Acts  been  first  exerted  on  English  ground,  they  would  proba- 
bly have  expired  as  soon  as  they  touched  it.  But,  by  being 
removed  from  our  persons,  they  have  rooted  in  our  laws,  and 
the  latest  posterity  will  taste  the  fruits  of  them. 

^Sor  is  it  tlu-  worst  eflVrt  of  this  unnatural  contention,  that 
our  laws  are  corrupted.  "Whilst  nnmm  /•*  remain  entire,  they  will 
correct  the  vices  of  law,  and  soften  it  at  length  to  their  own 
temper.  But  we  have  to  lament  that  in  most  of  the  late  pro- 
ceedings we  see  very  IV  w  traces  of  that  generosity,  humanity, 
and  dignity  of  mind,  which  formerly  characterized  this  nation. 
"War  suspends  the  rules  of  moral  obligation,  and  what  is  long 
suspended  is  in  danger  of  being  totally  abrogated.  Civil  wars 
strike  deepest  of  all  into  the  manners  of  the  people.  They  viti- 
ate t  heir  polities  ;  they  corrupt  their  morals  ;  they  pervert  even 
the  natural  taste  and  relish  of  equity  and  justice.  By  teaching 
us  to  consider  our  fellow-citizens  in  an  hostile  light,  the  whole 
body  of  our  nation  becomes  gradually  less  dear  to  us.  The 
very  names  of  affection  and  kindred,  which  were  the  bond  of 
charity  whilst  we  agreed,  become  new  incentives  to  hatred  and 
rage  when  the  communion  of  our  country  is  dissolved.  We  may 
Hatter  ourselves  that  we  shall  not  fall  into  this  misfortune. 
But  we  have  1,0  charter  of  exemption,  that  I  know  of,  from  the 
ordinary  frailties  of  our  nature. 

What  but  that  blindness  of  heart  which  arises  from  the 
frenzy  of  civil  contention  could  have  made  any  persons  con- 
ceive the  present  situation  of  the  British  affairs  as  an  object  of 
triumph  to  themselves  or  of  congratulation  to  their  sovereign? 
Nothing,  surely,  could  be  more  lamentable  to  those  who  re- 
member the  nourishing  days  of  this  kingdom,  than  to  seethe 
insane  joy  of  several  unhappy  people,  amidst  the  sad  spectacle 
which  our  affairs  and  conduct  exhibit  to  the  scorn  of  Europe. 
AVe  behold  (and  it  seems  some  people  rejoice  in  beholding) 
our  native  land,  which  used  to  sit  the  envied  arbiter  of  all  her 
neighbours,  reduced  to  a  servile  dependence  on  their  mercy,  — 
acquiescing  in  assurances  of  friendship  which  she  does  not 
trust,  —  complaining  of  hostilities  which  she  dares  not  resent,  — 

oiid,  passed  the  same  session,  revoked  and  annulled  the  royal  charter  of  Massa- 


Bay,  in  pursuance  of  which  the  public  affairs  of  the  colony  had  been 
conducted  more  than  eighty  years;  the  Act  took  the  appointment  of  all  judicial 
and  municipal  olliccr.-.  awa\  from  the  colonists,  and  vested  it  in  the  Crown.  The 
third,  also  passed  the  same  session,  was  for  quartering  British  troops  upon  the 
inhabitants  of  Boston;  thus  compelling  them  to  support  the  instruments  of  their 
own  oppression.  All  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  a  most  insane  policy;  utterly 
impotent,  too,  nave  to  exasperate  and  inflame. 


20  BURKE. 

deficient  to  her  allies,  lofty  to  her  subjects,  and  submissive  to 
her  enemies;2 —  whilst  the  liberal  government  of  this  free  na- 
tion is  supported  by  the  hireling  sword  of  German  boors  and 
vassals,  and  three  millions  of  the  subjects  of  Great  ttajtain  are 
seeking  for  protection  to  English  privileges  in  the  arms  of 
France ! 

These  circumstances  appear  to  me  more  like  shocking  prod- 
igies than  natural  changes  in  human  affairs.  Men  of  firmer 
minds  may  see  them  without  staggering  or  astonishment. 
Some  may  think  them  matters  of  congratulation  and  c^fcpli- 
mentary  addresses ;  but  I  trust  your  candour  will  1  > 
gent  to  my  weakness  as  not  to  have  the  worse  opinion  of  me  for 
my  declining  to  participate  in  this  joy,  and  my  rejecting  all 
share  whatsoever  in  such  a  triumph.  I  am  too  old,  too  stiff  in 
my  inveterate  partialities,  to  be  ready  at  all  the  fashionable  ev- 
olutions of  opinion.  I  scarcely  know  how  to  adapt  my  mind  to 
the  feelings  with  which  the  Court  Gazettes  im  an  to  impress  t  he 
people.  It  is  not  instantly  that  I  can  be  brought  to  rejoice, 
when  I  hear  of  the  slaughter  and  captivity  of  long  lists  of  those 
names  which  have  been  familiar  to  my  cars  from  my  infancy, 
and  to  rejoice  that  they  have  fallen  under  the  sword  of 
strangers,  whose  barbarous  appellations  I  scarcely  know  how  to 
pronounce.  The  glory  acquired  at  the  White  Plains  by  Colonel 
Eahl  has  no  charms  for  me,  and  1  fairly  acknowledge  that  I 
have  not  yet  learned  to  delight  in  finding  Fort  Kniphauseii  in 
the  heart  of  the  British  dominions.3 

It  might  be  some  consolation  for  the  loss  of  our  old  regards, 
if  our  reason  were  enlightened  in  proportion  as  our  honest  prej- 
udices are  removed.  Wanting  feelings  for  the  honour  of  our 
country,  we  might  then  in  cold  blood  be  brought  to  think  a 
little  of  our  interests  as  individual  citizens  and  our  private  con- 
science as  moral  agents. 

Indeed,  our  affairs  are  in  a  bad  condition.  I  do  assure  those 
gentlemen  who  have  prayed  for  war,  and  obtained  the  blessing 
they  have  sought,  that  they  are  at  this  instant  in  very  great 
straits.  The  abused  wealth  of  this  country  continues  a  little 
longer  to  feed  its  distemper.  As  yet  they,  and  their  German 

2  The  special  allusion  here  is  to  the  negotiations,  th%  in  progress,  which 
resulted  in  an  alliance  between  France  and  the  colonies.    The  IJritish  govern- 
ment were  aware  of  those  proceedings,  hut  had  to  ignore  them,  through  tear  of 
provoking  Trance  to  an  early  championship  ol'tlie  American  cause. 

3  General  Kniphauseii  was  a  commander  of  the  (ierman  troops  serving  un- 
der  General  Howe.    Alter  the  capture  of  Fort  Washington,  which  stood  on  the 
Hudson  not  far  above  New  York  city,  Colonel  Ulial,  or  Hall,  who  was  under 
Kniphausen,  and  was  the  hero  of  that  exploit,  changed  the  name  to  Fort  Knip. 
hauseu. 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  21 

allies  of  twenty  hireling  States,  have  contended  only  with  the 
unprepared  strength  of  our  own  infant  colonies.  But  America 
is  not  subdued.  ."Xot  one  unattacked  village  which  was  origin- 
ally averse  throughout  that  vast  continent  has  yet  submitted 
from  love  or  terror.  You  have  the  ground  you  encamp  on,  and 
you  have  no  more.  The  cantonments  of  your  troops  and  your 
dominions  arc  exactly  of  the  same  extent.  You  spread  devas- 
tation, but  you  do  not  enlarge  the  sphere  of  authority. 

The  events  of  this  war  are  of  so  much  greater  magnitude  than 
tl^Bb  who  either  wished  or  feared  it  ever  looked  for,  that  this 
alone  ought  to  lill  every  considerate  mind  with  anxiety  and  dif- 
fidence. Wise  men  often  trembler  at  the  very  things  which  fill 
the  thoughtless  with  security.  For  many  reasons  I  do  not 
choose  to  expose  to  public  view  all  the  particulars  of  the  state 
in  which  yon  stood  with  regard  to  foreign  powers  during  the 
whole  course  of  the  last  year.  Whether  you  are  yet  wholly  out 
of  danger  from  them  is  more  than  1  know,  or  than  your  rulers 
can  divine.  ]>ut  even  if  I  were  certain  of  my  safety,  I  could  not 
easily  forgive  tho.-e  \vho  had  brought  me  into  the  most  dreadful 
perils,  because  by  accidents,  unforeseen  by  them  or  me,  I  have 
escaped. 

] Relieve  me,  Gentlemen,  the  way  still  before  you  is  intricate, 
dark,  and  full  of  perplexed  and  treacherous  mazes.  Those  who 
think  they  have  the  clew  may  lead  us  out  of  this  labyrinth. 
AVe  may  trust  them  as  amply  as  we  think  proper;  but  as  they 
have  most  certainly  a  call  for  all  the  reason  which  their  stock 
i'urnisli,  why  should  we  think  it  proper  to  disturb  its  opera- 
tion by  inflaming  their  passions?  1  may  be  unable  to  lend  a 
helping  hand  to  those  who  direct  the  State;  but  I  should  be 
a>hainc<l  to  make  myself  one  of  a  noisy  multitude  to  halloo 
and  hearten  them  into  doubtful  and  dangerous  courses.  A 
coiiM-ientioiis  man  would  be  cautious  how  he  dealt  in  blood. 
Hi;  would  feel  some  apprehension  at  being  called  to  a  tremen- 
dous account  for  engaging  in  so  deep  a  play  without  any  sort 
of  knowledge  of  the  game.  It  is  no  excuse  for  presumptuous 
ignorance,  that  it  is  directed  by  insolent  passion.  The  poorest 
being  that  crawls  on  earth,  contending  to  save  itself  from  in- 
justice and  oppression,  is  an  object  respectable  in  the  eyes  of 
(••"I  and  man.  ^13 ut  I  cannot  conceive  any  existence  under 
Heaven  (which  in  the  depths  of  its  wisdom  tolerates  all  sorts 
of  tliiniis  |  that  H  more  truly  odious  and  disgusting  than  an  im- 
potent, h<]ple>s  creature,  without  civil  wisdom  or  military  skill, 
without  a  eonsriou.-iic*s  of  any  other  qualification  for  power  but 
his  senility  to  it,  bloated  with  pride  and  arrogance,  calling  for 
bat  this  which  he  is  not  to  light,  contending  for  a  violent  do- 
minion which  he  can  never  exercise,  and  satisfied  to  be  himself 


22  BURKE. 

mean  and  miserable,  in  order  to  render  others  contemptible 
and  wretched. 

If  you  and  I  find  our  talents  not  of  the  great  and  ruling  kind, 
our  conduct,  at  least,  is  conformable  to  our  faculties.  No 
man's  life  pays  the  forfeit  of  our  rashness.  Xo  desolate  widow 
weeps  tears  of  blood  over  our  ignorance.  Scrupulous  and  sol  >er 
in  a  well-grounded  distrust  of  ourselves,  we  would  keep  in  the 
port  of  peace  and  security ;  and  perhaps  in  recommending  to 
others  something  of  the  same  diffidence,  we  should  show  our- 
selves more  charitable  to  their  welfare  than  injurious  to  their 
abilities. 

There  are  many  circumstances  in  the  zeal  shown  for  civil  war 
which  seem  to  discover  but  little  of  real  magnanimity.  The 
addressers  offer  their  own  persons,  and  they  arc  sat  islicd  with 
hiring  Germans.  They  promise  their  private  fortunes,  and  they 
mortgage  their  country.  They  have  all  the  merit  of  volunteers, 
without  risk  of  person  or  charge  of  contribution  ;  and  when  the 
unfeeling  arm  of  a  foreign  soldiery  pours  out  their  kindred  blood 
like  water,  they  exult  and  triumph  as  if  they  themselves  had 
performed  some  notable  exploit.  J  am  really  ashamed  of  the 
fashionable  language  which  has  been  held  for  some  time  past, 
which,  to  say  the  best  of  it,  is  full  of  levity.  You  know  that  I 
allude  to  the  general  cry  against  the  cowardice  of  the  Amer- 
icans, as  if  we  despised  them  for  not  making  the  King's  soldiery 
purchase  the  advantage  they  have  obtained  at  a  dearer  rate. 
It  is  not,  Gentlemen,  it  is  not  to  respect  the  dispensations  of 
Providence,  nor  to  provide  any  decent  retreat  in  the  mutability 
of  human  affairs.  It  leaves  no  medium  between  insolent  victory 
and  infamous  defeat.  It  tends  to  alienate  our  minds  further 
and  further  from  our  natural  regards,  and  to  make  an  eternal 
rent  and  schism  in  the  British  nation.  Those  who  do  not  wish 
for  such  a  separation  would  not  dissolve  that  cement  of  reciprocal 
esteem  and  regard  which  can  alone  bind  together  the  part.-  of 
this  great  fabric.  It  ought  to  be  our  wish,  as  it  is  our  duty,  not- 
only  to  forbear  this  style  of  outrage  ourselves,  but  to  make 
every  one  as  sensible  as  we  can  of  the  impropriety  and  un- 
worthiness  of  the  tempers  which  give  rise  to  it,  and  which  de- 
signing men  are  labouring  with  such  malignant  industry  to 
diffuse  amongst  us.  It  is  our  business  to  counteract  them,  if 
possible, — if  possible,  to  awake  our  natural  regards,  and  to 
revive  the  old  partiality  to  the  English  name.  "Without  some- 
thing of  this  kind  I  do  not  see  how  it  is  ever  practicable  really 
•to  reconcile  with  those  whose  affection,  after  all,  must  he  the 
surest  hold  of  our  government,  and  which  is  a  thousand  times 
more  worth  to  us  than  the  mercenary  zeal  of  all  the  circles  of 
Germany. 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  23 

I  can  well  conceive  a,  country  completely  overrun,  and  mis- 
erably wasted,  without  approaching  in  the  least  to  settlement. 
In  my  apprehension,  as  long  as  English  government  is  attempt- 
ed to  be  supported  over  Englishmen  by  the  sword  alone,  things 
will  thus  continue.  I  anticipate  in  my  mind  the  moment  of  the 
final  triumph  of  foreign  military  force.  When  that  hour  arrives, 
(for  it  may  arrive,)  then  it  is  that  all  this  mass  of  weakness  and 
violence  will  appear  in  its  full  light.  If  we  should  be  expelled 
from  America,  the  delusion  of  the  partisans  of  military  govern- 
ment might  si  ill  continue.  They  might  still  feed  their  imagina- 
tions with  the  possible  good  consequences  which  might  have 
attended  success.  [Nobody  could  prove  the  contrary  by  facts. 
But  in  case  the  sword  should  do  all  that  the  sword  can  do,  the 
ntceeflfl  <>f  their  arms  and  the  defeat  of  their  policy  will  be  one 
and  the  same  thing.  You  will  never  see  any  revenue  from 
America.  Some  increase  of  the  means  of  corruption,  without 
I  llie  public  burdens,  is  the  very  best  that  can  happen. 
Is  it  for  this  that  \ve  are  at  war, — and  in  such  a  war? 

As  to  th«'  diilicnlties  of  laying  once  more  the  foundations  of 
that  government  which,  for  the  sake  of  conquering  what  was 
our  own,  has  been  voluntarily  and  wantonly  pulled  down  by  a 
Court  faction  here,  1  trnnblr  to  look  at  them.  Has  any  of  these 
gentlemen  who  are  so  rjigrr  to  govern  all  mankind  shown  him- 
self posse-^cd  of  the  first  qualification  towards  government, 
some  knowledge  of  the  object,  and  of  the  difficulties  which 
occur  in  the  task  they  have  undertaken? 

I  a.-suiv  you  that,  on  the  mo.st  prosperous  issue  of  your  arms, 
you  will  not  be  where  you  stood  when  you  called  in  war  to 
supply  tin-  defect*  of  your  political  establishment.  Nor  would 
any  disorder  or  disobedience  to  government  which  could  arise 
from  the  moist  abject  concession  on  our  part  ever  equal  those 
which  will  be  felt  after  the  most  triumphant  violence.  You 
have  got  all  the  intermediate  evils  of  war  into  the  bargain. 

I  think  I  know  America,  —  if  I  do  not,  my  ignorance  is  incura- 
b;,'.  Tor  I  have  spared  no  pains  to  understand  it, —  and  I  do 
•  >leinnly  assure  those  of  my  constituents  who  put  any  sort 
of  confidence  in  my  industry  and  integrity,  that  every  thing 
that  has  been  done  there  has  arisen  from  a  total  misconception 
of  the  object  ;  that  our  means  of  originally  holding  America, 
that  our  means  of  reconciling  with  it  after  quarrel,  of  recover- 
,:ft<-r  separation,  of  keeping  it  after  victory,  did  depend, 
and  inu>t  depend,  in  their  several  stages  and  periods,  upon  a 
tol;il  renunciation  of  that  unconditional  submission  which  has 
taken  such  po->es>ion  of  the  minds  of  violent  men.  The  whole 
of  those  maxims  upon  which  we  have  made  and  continued  this 
war  must  be  abandoned.  Nothing,  indeed,  (for  I  would  not  de- 


24  BURKE. 

ceive  you,)  can  place  us  in  our  former  situation.  That  hope 
must  be  laid  aside.  But  there  is  a  difference  between  bad  and 
the  worst  of  all.  Terms  relative  to  the  cause  of  the  war  ought 
to  be  offered  by  the  authority  of  Parliament.  An  arrangement 
at  home  promising  some  security  for  them  ought  to  be  made. 
By  doing  this,  without  the  least  impairing  of  our  strength,  we 
add  to  the  credit  of  our  moderation,  which,  in  itself,  is  always 
strength  more  or  less. 

I  know  many  have  been  taught  to  think  that  moderation  in  a 
case  like  this  is  a  sort  of  treason ;  and  that  all  arguments  for 
it  are  sufficiently  answered  by  railing  at  rebels  and  rebellion, 
and  by  charging  all  the  present  or  future  miseries  which  we 
may  suffer  on  the  resistance  of  our  brethren.  But  I  would  wish 
them,  in  this  grave  matter,  and  if  peace  is  not  wholly  removed 
from  their  hearts,  to  consider  seriously,  first,  that  to  criminate 
and  recriminate  never  yet  was  the  road  to  reconciliation,  in  any 
difference  amongst  men.  In  the  next  place,  it  would  be  right 
to  reflect  that  the  American  English  (whom  they  may  abu>e,  it' 
they  think  it  honourable  to  revile  the  absent)  can,  as  tilings  no\v 
stand,  neither  be  provoked  at  our  railing  or  Lettered  by  our  in- 
struction. All  communication  is  cut  oil  between  us.  But  this 
we  know  with  certainty,  that,  though  we  cannot  reclaim  them, 
we  may  reform  ourselves.  If  measures  of  peace  are  necessary, 
they  must  begin  somewhere;  and  a  conciliatory  temper  must 
precede  and  prepare  every  plan  of  reconciliation.  Nor  do  I 
conceive  that  we  suffer  any  tiling  by  thus  regulating  our  own 
minds.  AVe  are  not  disarmed  by  being  disencumbered  of  our 
passions.  Declaiming  on  rebellion  never  added  a  bayonet  or  a 
charge  of  powder  to  your  military  force  ;  but  I  am  afraid  that  it 
has  been  the  means  of  taking  up  many  muskets  against  you. 

This  outrageous  language,  which  lias  been  encouraged  and 
kept  alive  by  every  art,  lias  already  done  incredible  mischief. 
For  a  long  time,  even  amidst  the  desolations  of  war,  and  the  in- 
sults of  hostile  laws  daily  accumulated  on  one  another,  the 
American  leaders  seem  to  have  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
bringing  up  their  people  to  a  declaration  of  total  independence. 
But  the  Court  Gazette  accomplished  what  the  abettors  of  inde- 
pendence had  attempted  in  vain.  When  that  disingenuous 
compilation  and  strange  medley  of  railing  and  llattery  was  ad- 
duced as  a  proof  of  the  united  sentiments  of  the  people  of  (Jivat 
Britain,  there  was  a  great  change  throughout  all  America. 
The  tide  of  popular  affection,  v.hich  had  still  set  towards  the 
parent  country,  began  immediately  to  turn,  and  to  How  with 
great  rapidity  in  a  contrary  course.  Far  from  concealing  these 
wild  declarations  of  enmity,  the  author  of  the  celebrated  pam- 
phlet which  prepared  the  minds  of  the  people  for  independence 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  25 

insists  largely  on  the  multidude  and  the  spirit  of  these 
addresses  ;  and  lie  draws  an  argument  from  them,  which,  if  the 
fact  were  as  he  supposes,  must  be  irresistible.  For  I  never 
knew  a  writer  on  the  theory  of  government  so  partial  to  author- 
ity as  not  to  allow  that  the  hostile  mind  of  the  rulers  to  their 
people  did  fully  justify  a  change  of  government;  nor  can  any 
reason  whatever  be  given  why  one  people  should  voluntarily 
yield  any  degree  of  preeminence  to  another  but  on  a  supposition 
of  great  affection  and  benevolence  towards  them.  Unfortu- 
nately, your  rulers,  trusting  to  other  things,  took  no  notice  of 
this  great  principle  of  connection.  From  the  beginning  of  this 
affair,  they  have  done  all  they  could  to  alienate  your  minds  from 
your  own  kindred;  and  if  they  could  excite  hatred  enough  in 
one  of  the  parties  towards  the  other,  they  seemed  to  be  of  opin- 
ion that  they  had  gone  halt'  the  way  towards  reconciling  the 
quarrel. 

I  know  it  is  said,  that  your  kindness  is  only  alienated  on  ac- 
count of  their  resistance,  and  therefore,  if  the  colonies  surren- 
der at  discretion,  all  sort  of  regard,  and  even  much  indulgence, 
is  meant  towards  them  in  future.  IJut  can  those  who  are 
partisans  for  continuing  ;i  war  to  enforces  such  a  surrender  be 
responsible  (after  all  thai  has  passed)  for  such  a  future  use  of 
a  power  that  is  bound  by  no  comparts  and  restrained  by  no 
terror?  Will  they  tell  us  what  they  rail  indulgences?  Do  they 
not  at  this  instant  rail  the  present  war  and  all  its  horrors  a 
lenient  -and  merciful  prom-ding  V 

No  conqueror  that  I  ever  heard  of  has  professed  to  make  a 
cruel,  harsh,  and  insolent  u<e  of  his  conquest.  No!  The  man 
of  the  most  declared  pride  scarcely  dares  to  trust  his  own  heart 
with  this  dreadful  secret  of  ambition.  But  it  will  appear  in  its 
time  ;  and  no  man  who  professes  to  reduce  another  to  the  inso- 
lent merry  of  a  foreign  arm  ever  had  any  sort  of  good-will  to- 
wards him.  The  profession  of  kindness,  with  that  sword  in  his 
hand,  and  that  demand  of  surrender,  is  one  of  the  most,  provok- 
iii.'j,-  acts  of  his  hostility.  I  shall  he  told  that  all  this  is  lenient 
inst  rebellious  adversaries.  But  are  the  leaders  of  their 
faction  more  lenient  to  those  who  submit  I  Lord  Howe  and 
(ieneral  Howe  have  powers,  under  an  Act  of  Parliament,  to  re- 
store to  the  King's  peace  and  to  free  trade  any  men  or  district 
which  shall  submit.  Is  this  done  ?  We  have  been  over  and  over 
informed  by  the  authori/ed  ga/ette,  that  the  city  of  New  York 
and  the  countries  of  Staten  and  Long  Island  have  submitted 
voluntarily  and  cheerfully,  and  that  many  are  very  full  of  zeal 
cause  of  administration.  Were  they  instantly  restored  to 
trade?  A  re  they  yet  restored  to  it?  Is  not  the  benignity  o  I  t  wo 
commissioners,  naturally  most  humane  and  generous  men,  some 


26  BURKE. 

way  fettered  by  instructions,  equally  against  their  dispositions 
and  the  spirit  of  Parliamentary  faith,  when  Mr.  Tryon,  vaunt- 
ing of  the  fidelity  of  the  city  in  which  he  is  governor,  is  obliged 
to  apply  to  ministry  for  leave  to  protect  the  King's  loyal  sub- 
jects, and  to  grant  to  them,  not  the  disputed  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  freedom,  but  the  common  rights  of  men,  by  the  name 
of  graces  ?  Why  do  not  the  commissioners  restore  them  on  the 
spot?  Were  they  not  named  as  commissioners  for  that  express 
purpose?  But  we  see  well  enough  to  what  the  whole  leads. 
The  trade  of  America  is  to  be  dealt  out  in  private  indulijnm* 
and  graces'  that  is,  in  jobs  to  recompense  the  incendiaries  of 
war.  They  will  be  informed  of  the  proper  time  in  which  to 
send  out  their  merchandise.  From  a  national,  the  American 
trade  is  to  be  turned  into  a  personal  monopoly,  and  one  set  of 
merchants  are  to  be  rewarded  for  the  pretended  /eal  of  which 
another  set  are  the  dupes;  and  thus,  between  craft  and  credu- 
lity, the  voice  of  reason  is  stifled,  and  all  the  misconduct,  all 
the  calamities  of  the  war  are  covered  and  continued. 

If  I  had  not  lived  long  enough  to  be  little  surprised  at  any 
thing,  I  should  have  been  in  some  degree  astonished  at  the  con- 
tinued rage  of  several  gentlemen,  who,  not  satisfied  with  car- 
rying (ire  and  sword  into  America,  are  animated  nearly  with  the 
same  fury  against  those  neighbours  of  theirs  whose  only  crime 
it  is,  that  they  have  charitably  and  humanely  wished  them  to 
entertain  more  reasonable  sentiments,  and  not  always  to  sac- 
rifice their  interest  to  their  passion.  All  this  rage  against  unre- 
sisting dissent  convinces  me  that,  at  bottom,  they  are  far  from 
satisfied  they  are  in. the  right.  For  what  is  it  they  would  have? 
A  war?  They  certainly  have  at  this  moment  the  blessing  of 
something  that  is  very  like  one ;  and  if  the  war  they  enjoy  at 
present  be  not  sufficiently  hot  and  extensive,  they  may  shortly 
have  it  as  warm  and  as  spreading  as  their  hearts  can  desire.  Is 
it  the  force  of  the  kingdom  they  call  for?  They  have  it  al- 
ready ;  and  if  they  choose  to  fight  their  battles  in  their  own  per- 
son, nobody  prevents  their  setting  sail  to  America  in  the  next 
transports.  Do  they  think  that  the  service  is  stinted  for  want 
of  liberal  supplies?  Indeed  they  complain  without  reason. 
The  table  of  the  House  of  Commons  will  glut  them,  let  their 
appetite  for  expense  be  never  so  keen.  And  I  assure  them 
further,  that  those  who  think  with  them  in  the  House  of  (,'om- 
mons  are  full  as  easy  in  the  control  as  they  are  liberal  in  the 
vote  of  these  expenses.  If  this  be  not  supply  or  confidence 
sullicicnt,  let  them  open  their  own  private  purse-strings,  and 
give,  from  what  is  left  to  them,  as  largely  and  with  as  little  care 
as  they  think  proper. 

Tolerated  in  their  passions,  let  them  learn  not  to  persecute 


LETTER  TO  THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  27 

the  moderation  of  their  fellow-citizens.  If  all  the  world  joined 
them  in  a  full  cry  against  rebellion,  and  were  as  hotly  inflamed 
against  the  whole  theory  and  enjoyment  of  freedom  as  those 
who  are  the  most  factious  for  servitude,  it  could  not,  in  my 
opinion,  answer  any  one  end  whatsoever  in  this  contest.  The 
leaders  of  this  war  could  not  hire  (to  gratify  their  friends)  one 
German  more  than  they  do,  or  inspire  him  with  less  feeling  for 
the  persons  or  less  value  for  the  privileges  of  their  revolted 
brethren.  If  we  all  adopted  their  sentiments  to  a  man,  their 
allies,  the  savage  Indians,  could  not  be  more  ferocious  than 
they  are  :  they  could  not  murder  one  more  helpless  woman  or 
child,  or  with  more  exquisite  refinements  of  cruelty  torment 
to  death  one  more  of  their  English  flesh  and  blood,  than  they 
do  already.  The  public  money  is  given  to  purchase  this  alli- 
ance ;  — and  they  have  their  bargain. 

They  are  continually  boasting  of  unanimity,  or  calling  for  it. 
But  before  this  unanimity  can  be  matter  either  of  wish  or  con- 
gratulation, we  ought  to  be  pretty  sure  that  we  are  engaged  in  a 
rational  pursuit.  Fren/y  does  not  become  a  slighter  distemper 
on  account  of  the  number  of  those  who  may  be  infected  with  it. 
Delusion  and  weakness  produce  not  one  mischief  the  less  be- 
cause they  are  universal.  I  declare  that  I  cannot  discern  the 
least  advantage  which  could  accrue  to  us,  if  we  were  able  to 
persuade  our  colonies  that  they  had  not  a  single  friend  in  Great 
Britain.  On  the  contrary,  if  the  affections  and  opinions  of 
mankind  be  not  exploded  as  principles  of  connection,  I  conceive 
it  would  be  happy  tor  us,  if  they  were  taught  to  believe  that 
there  was  even  a  formed  American  party  in  England,  to  whom 
they  could  always  look  for  support.  Happy  would  it  be  for  us, 
if,  in  all  tempers  they  might  turn  their  eyes  to  the  parent  State, 
so  that  their  very  turbulence  and  sedition  should  lind  vent  in 
no  other  place  than  this!  I  belive  there  is  not  a  man  (except 
those  \vlio  prefer  the  interest  of  some  paltry  faction  to  the  very- 
being  of  their  country)  who  would  not  wish  that  the,  Americans 
should  from  time  to  time  carry  many  points,  and  even  some  of 
them  not  quite  reasonable,  by  the  aid  of  any  denomination  of 
men  here,  rat  her  than  they  should  be  driven  to  seek  for  protec- 
tion against  the  fury  of  foreign  mercenaries  and  the  waste  of 
savages  in  the  arms  of  France. 

When  any  community  is  subordinately  connected  with  an- 
other, the  great  danger  of  the  connection  is  the  extreme  pride 
and  self-complacency  of  the  superior,  which  in  all  matters  of 
controversy  will  probably  decide  in  its  own  favour.  It  is  a 
powerful  corrective  to  such  a  very  rational  cause  of  fear,  if  the 
inferior  body  can  be  made  to  believe  that  the  party  inclination 
or  political  views  of  several  in  the  principal  State  will  induce 


28  BURKE. 

them  in  some  degree  to  counteract  this  blind  and  tyrannical 
partiality.  There  is  no  danger  that  any  one  acquiring  consid- 
eration or  power  in  the  presiding  State  should  carry  this  leaning 
to  the  inferior  too  far.  The  fault  of  human  nature  is  not  of 
that  sort.  Power,  in  whatever  hands,  is  rarely  guilty  of  too 
strict  limitations  on  itself.  But  one  great  advantage  to  the  sup- 
port of  authority  attends  such  an  amicable  and  protecting  con- 
nection,—  that  those  who  have  conferred  favours  obtain  influ- 
ence, and  from  the  foresight  of  future  events  can  persuade  men 
who  have  received  obligations  sometimes  to  return  them.  Thus, 
by  the  mediation  of  those  healing  principles,  (call  them  good 
or  evil,)  troublesome  discussions  are  brought  to  some  sort  of 
adjustment^  and  every  hot  controversy  is  not  a  civil  war. 

But,  if  the  colonies  (to  bring  the  general  matter  home  to  us) 
could  see  that  in  Great  Britain  the  mass  of  the  people  is  melted 
into  its  government,  and  that  every  dispute  with  the  Ministry 
must  of  neccessity  be  always  a  quarrel  with  the  nation,  they 
can  stand  no  longer  in  the  equal  and  friendly  relation  of  fellow- 
citizens  to  the  subjects  of  this  kingdom.  Humble  as  this  rela- 
tion may  appear  to  some,  when  it  is  once  broken,  a  strong  t'n-  is 
dissolved.  Other  sort  of  connections  will  be  sought.  For  there 
are  very  few  in  the  world  who  will  not  prefer  an  useful  ally  to 
an  insolent  master. 

Such  discord  has  been  the  effect  of  the  unanimity  into  which 
so  many  have  of  late  been  seduced  or  bullied,  or  into  the  ap- 
pearance of  which  they  have  sunk  through  mere  despair.  They 
have,  been  told  that  their  dissent  from  violent  measures  is  an 
encouragement  to  rebellion.  Men  of  great  presumption  and 
little  knowledge  will  hold  ft  language  which  is  contradicted  by 
the  whole  course  of  history.  Unm-uI  rebellions  and  revolts  of 
an  whole  people  never  were  <  n<-<»<r<ii/i<l,  now  or  at  any  time. 
They  are  always proro/o  <l  But  if  this  unheard-of  doct  rine  of  the 
encouragement  of  rebellion  were  true,  if  it  were  true  th;;t  an 
assurance  of  the  friendship  of  numbers  in  this  country  towards 
the  colonies  could  become  an  encouragement  to  them  to  break 
off  all  connection  with  it,  what  is  the  inference?  Does  anybody 
seriously  maintain  that,  charged  with  my  share  of  the  public 
councils,  I  am  obliged  not  to  resist  projects  which  I  think  mis- 
chievous, lest  men  who  suffer  should  be  encouraged  to  ivsi>t  ? 
The  very  tendency  of  such  projects  to  produce  rebellion  is  one 
of  the  chief  reasons  against  them.  Shall  that  reason  net  be 
given?  Is  it,  then,  a  rule,  that  no  man  in  this  nation  shall  open 
his  mouth  in  favour  of  the  colonies,  shall  defend  their  rights, 
or  complain  of  their  sufferings,— or,  when  war  IJnally  breaks 
out,  no  man  shall  express  his  desires  of  peace  'J.  Has  thi- 
the  law  of  our  past,  or  is  it  to  be  the  terms  of  our  future  con- 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  29 

nection?  Even  looking  no  further  than  ourselves,  can  it  be 
true  loyalty  to  any  government,  or  true  patriotism  towards  any 
country,  to  degrade  their  solemn  councils  into  servile  draAving- 
rooms,  to  flat  tin*  their  pride,  and  passions  rather  than  to  en- 
lighten their  reason,  and  to  prevent  them  from  being  cautioned 
against  violence,  lest  others  should  be  encouraged  to  resistance? 
By  such  acquiescence  great  kings  and  mighty  nations  have  been 
undone  ;  and  ii'  any  are  at  this  day  in  a  perilous  situation  from 
rejecting  truth  and  listening  to  (lattery,  it  would  rather  become 
them  to  reform  the  errors  under  which  they  suffer  than  to 
reproach  those  who  forewarned  them  of  their  danger. 

But  the  rebels  looked  for  assistance  from  this  country?  — 
They  did  so,  in  the  beginning  of  this  controversy,  most  cer- 
tainly ;  and  they  sought  it  by  earnest  supplications  to  govern- 
ment, which  dignity  rejected,  and  by  a  suspension  of  commerce, 
which  the  wealth  of  this  nation  enabled  you  to  despise.  "When 
they  found  that  neither  prayers  nor  menaces  had  any  sort  of 
weight,  but  that  a  lirm  resolution  was  taken  to  reduce  them  to 
unconditional  obedience  by  a  military  force,  they  came  to  the 
.tremity.  Despairing  of  us,  they  trusted  in  themselves. 
Not  >trong  enough  themselves,  they  sought  succour  in  France. 
In  proportion  a*  all  encouragement  here  lessened,  their  distance 
from  this  country  increased.  The  encouragement  is  over  ;  the 
alienation  is  complete. 

In  order  to  produce  this  favourite  unanimity  in  delusion,  and 
to  prevent  nil  possibility  of  a  return  to  our  ancient  happy  con- 
cord, arguments  for  <mr  continuance  in  this  course,  are  drawn 
from  the  wretched  situation  itself  into  which  we  have  been  be- 
trayed. It  is  said  that,  being  at  war  with  the  colonies,  whatever 
our  sentiments  miuht  have  been  before,  all  ties  between  US  are 
DOW  dissolved,  and  all  the  policy  we,  have  left  is  to  strengthen 
tin-  hands  of  gu\  eminent  to  reduce  them.  On  the  principle  of 
this  argument,  the  more  mischiefs  we  suffer  from  any  adminis- 
tration, the  more,  our  trust  in  it  is  to  be  confirmed.  Let  them 
but  once  get  us  into  a  war,  and  then  their  power  is  safe,  and  an 
Act  of  oblivion  passed  for  all  their  misconduct. 

15ut  is  it  really  true  that  government  is  always  to  be  strength- 
ened with  the  instruments  of  war,  but,  never  furnished  with  (he 
I  of  peace?  In  former  times,  Ministers,  I  allow,  have 
been  sometimes  driven  by  the  popular  voice  to  assert  by  arms 
the  national  honour  against  foreign  powers,  \\i\t  the  wisdom 
of  the  nation  has  been  far  more  clear,  when  those  Ministers 
have  been  compelled  to  consult  its  interests  by  treaty.  "We,  all 
know  that  the  .-ense  of  the  nation  obliged  the  Court  of  Charles 
the  Second  to  abandon  the  Dutch  war;  — a  war,  next,  to  tbe  pres- 
ent, the  most  impolitic  which  wo  ever  carried  on.  The  good 


30  BURKE. 

people  of  England  considered  Holland  as  a  sort  of  dependency 
on  this  kingdom  ;  they  dreaded  to  drive  it  to  the  protection  or 
subject  it  to  the  power  of  France  by  their  own  inconsiderate 
hostility.  They  paid  but  little  respect  to  the  Court  jargon  of 
that  day  ;  nor  were  they  inflamed  by  the  pretended  rivalship  of 
the  Dutch  in  trade, —  by  the  massacre  at  Amboyna,  acted  on  the 
stage  to  provoke  the  public  vengeance,4  —  nor  by  declamations 
against  the  ingratitude  of  the  United  Provinces  for  the  benriiis 
England  had  conferred  upon  them  in  their  infant  state.  They 
were  not  moved  from  their  evident  interest  by  all  these  arts  ; 
nor  was  it  enough  to  tell  them  they  were  at  war,  that  they  mu>t 
go  through  with  it,  and  that  the  cause  of  the  dispute-  was  lost  in 
the  consequences.  The  people  of  England  were  then,  as  they 
are  now,  called  upon  to  make  government  strong.  They  thought 
it  a  great  deal  better  to  make  it  wise  and  honest. 

When  I  was  amongst  my  constituents  at  the  last  summer  as- 
sizes, I  remember  that  men  of  all  descriptions  did  then  express 
a  very  strong  desire  for  peace,  and  no  slight  hopes  of  attaining 
it  from  the  commission  sent  out  by  my  Lord  Howe.  And  it  is  not 
a  little  remarkable  that,  in  proportion  as  every  person  showed 
a  zeal  for  the  Court  measures,  he  was  then  earnest  in  circulating 
an  opinion  of  the  extent  of  the  supposed  powers  of  that  com- 
mission. AY  hen  I  told  them  that  Lord  Howe  had  no  powers  to 
treat,  or  to  promise  satisfaction  on  any  point  whatsoever  of  the 
controversy,  J  was  hardly  credited, —  so  strong  and  general  was 
the  desire  of  terminating  this  war  by  the  method  of  accommoda- 
tion. As  far  as  I  could  discover,  this  was  the  temper  then  prev- 
alent through  the  kingdom.  The  King's  forces,  it  must  be  ob- 
served, had  at  that  time  been  obliged  to  evacuate  Boston.  The 
superiority  of  the  former  campaign  rested  wholly  with  the  colo- 
nists. If  such  powers  of  treaty  were  to  be  wished  whilst  suc- 
cess was  very  doubtful,  how  came  they  to  be  less  so,  since  his 
Majesty's  arms  have  been  crowned  with  many  considerable  ad- 
vantages? Have  these  successes  induced  us  to  alter  our  mind, 
as  thinking  the  season  of  victory  not  the  time  for  treating  with 
honour  or  advantage?  Whatever  changes  have  happened  in 
the  national  character,  it  can  scarcely  be  our  wish  that  terms  of 

4  Amboyna  is  one  of  the  East  India  Islands.  A  trading  company  of  Eng- 
lislimcn,  with  their  families,  were  settled  there,  and  in  possrs.-ion  of  the  I.-laml; 
mid  in  1G23  or  IG'24,  a  Dutch  company,  wishing  to  engross  the  spice  trade,  claimed 
possession,  seized  the  English,  and  put  them  all  to  death,  with  circumstances 
of  great  atrocity.  In  1(»7'2,  Charles  the  Second,  who  was  then  a  pensioner  of 
Louis  the  Fourteenth,  formed  a  League  with  him,  and  forced  the  English  into 
making  common  cause  with  him  against  the  Dutch,  their  old  friends  and  allies. 
As  the  English  people  were  altogether  opposed  to  this  suicidal  war,  some  of  the 
King's  creatures  got  up  a  theatrical  representation  of  the  ma.- .-acre  at  Amboy- 
ua,  in  order  to  inflame  the  public  mind  against  the  Dutch. 


LETTER  TO  THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  31 

accommodation  never  should  be  proposed  to  our  enemy,  except 
when  they  must  be  attributed  solely  to  our  fears.  It  has  hap- 
pened, let  mo  say  unfortunately,  that  we  read  of  his  Majesty's 
commission fbr making  peace,  and  his  troops  evacuating  his  last 
town  in  the  Thirteen  Colonies,  at  the  same  hour  and  in  the  same 
gazette.  It  was  still  more  unfortunate  that  no  commission  went 
to  America  to  settle  the  troubles  there,  until  several  months 
after  an  Act  had  been  passed  to  put  the  colonies  out  of  the  pro- 
tection of  this  government,  and  to  divide  their  trading  property, 
without  a  possibility  of  restitution,  as  spoil  among  the  seamen 
of  the  navy.  The  most  abject  submission  on  the  part  of  the 
colonies  could  not  redeem  them.  There  was  no  man  on  that 
whole  continent,  or  within  three  thousand  miles  of  it,  qualified 
by  law  to  follow  allegiance  with  protection  or  submission  with 
pardon.  A  proceeding  of  this  kind  has  no  example  in  history. 
Independency,  and  independency  with  an  enmity,  (which,  put- 
ting ourselves  out  of  the  question,  would  be  called  natural  and 
much  provoked,1)  was  the  inevitable  consequence.  I  low  this 
came  to  pass  the  nation  may  be  one  day  in  an  humour  to  inquire. 

All  the  attempts  made  this  session  to  give  fuller  powers  of 
peace  to  the  commanders  in  America  were  stilled  1>\  the  fatal 
confidence  of  victory  and  the  wild  hopes  of  unconditional  sub- 
mission. There  was  a  moment  favourable  to  the  King's  arms, 
when,  if  any  powers  of  concession  had  existed  on  the  other 
side  of  t  he  Atlantic,  even  after  all  our  errors,  peace  in  all  proba- 
bility might  have  been  restored.  But  calamity  is  unhappily  the 
usual  season  of  rellection  ;  and  the  pride  of  men  will  not  often 
suffer  reason  to  have  any  scope,  until  it  can  be  no  longer  of 
ice. 

I  have  always  wished  that,  as  the  dispute  had  its  apparent 
origin  from  things  done  in  Parliament,  and  as  the  Acts  passed 
there  had  provoked  the  war.  the  foundations  of  peace  should  be 
laid  in  Parliament  also.  J  have  been  astonished  to  find  that 
those  whose  xcal  for  the  dignity  of  our  body  was  so  hot  as  to 
light  up  the  Ilames  (,f  civil  war  should  even  publicly  declare 
that  these  delicate  points  ought  to  be  wholly  left  to  the  Crown. 
Poorly  as  I  may  be  thought  siffected  to  the  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment, I  shall  never  admit  t  hat  our  const  itional  rights  can  ever 
;;<•  a  matter  of  ministerial  negotiation. 

I  am  charged  with  being  an  American.  If  warm  affection 
towards  tho>e  over  whom  I  claim  any  share  of  authority  be  a 
crime,  I  am  guilty  of  this  charge.  But  I  do  assure  you  (and 
they  who  know  me  publicly  and  privately  will  bear  witness  to 
me  ithat,  if  ever  one  man  lived  more  zealous  than  another  i'or 
the  supremacy  of  Parliament  and  the  rights  of  this  imperial 
Crown,  it  was  myself.  Many  others  indeed  might  be  more 


32  BURKE. 

knowing  in  the  extent  of  the  foundation  of  these  rights.  I  do 
not  pretend  to  be  an  antiquary,  a  lawyer,  or  qualified  for  the 
chair  of  professor  in  metaphysics.  T  never  ventured  to  put  your 
solid  interests  upon  speculative  grounds.  My  having  constantly 
declined  to  do  so  has  been  attributed  to  my  incapacity  for  such 
disquisitions  ;  and  I  am  inclined  to  believe  it  is  partly  the  cause. 
I  never  shall  be  ashamed  to  confess  that,  where  I  am  ignorant. 
I  am  diffident.  I  am  indeed  not  very  solicitous  to  clear  my>elf 
of  this  imputed  incapacity;  because  men  even  less  conversant 
than  I  am  in  this  kind  of  subtilties,  and  placed  in  stations  to 
which  I  ought  not  to  aspire,  have,  by  the  mere  force  of  civil 
discretion,  often  conducted  the  affairs  of  great  nations  with 
distinguished  felicity  and  glory. 

When  I  first  came  into  a  public  trust^  I  found  your  Parlia- 
ment in  possession  of  an  unlimited  legislative  power  over  the 
colonies.  I  could  not  open  the  statute-book  without  seeing  the 
actual  exercise  of  it,  more  or  less,  in  all  cases  whatsoever. 
This  possession  passed  with  me  for  a  title.  It  does  so  in  all 
human  affairs.  No  man  examines  into  the  defects  §f  his  title 
to  his  paternal  estate  or  to  his  established  government.  In- 
deed, common  sense  taught  me  that  a  legislative  authority  not 
actually  limited  by  the  express  terms  of  its  foundation,  or  by 
its  own  subsequent  Acts,  cannot  have  its  powers  parcelled  out 
by  argumentative  distinctions,  so  as  to  enable  us  to  say  that 
here  they  can  and  there  they  cannot  bind.  Nobody  wa<  so 
obliging  as  to  produce  to  me  any  record  of  such  distinctions,  by 
compact  or  otherwise,  either  at  the  successive  formation  of  the 
several  colonies  or  during  the  existence  of  any  of  them.  If  any 
gentlemen  were  able  to  se'e  how  one  power  could  be  given  up 
(merely  on  abstract  reasoning)  without  giving  up  the  rest,  I  can 
only  say  that  they  saw  further  than  I  could.  Xor  did  I  ever 
presume  to  condemn  any  one  for  being  clear-sighted  when  I 
was  blind.  I  praise  their  penetration  and  learning,  and  hope 
that  their  practice  has  been  correspondent  to  their  theory. 

I  had  indeed  very  earnest  wishes  to  keep  the  whole  body  of 
this  authority  perfect  and  entire  as  I  found  it,  —  and  to  ke<  p  it 
so,  not  for  our  advantage  solely,  but  principally  for  the  sake  of 
those  on  whose  account  all  just  authority  exists  :  I  mean,  the 
people  to  be  governed.  For  I  thought  I  saw  that  mum 
might  well  happen  in  which  the  exercise  of  every  power  com- 
prehended in  the  broadest  idea  of  legislature  might  become,  in 
its  time  and  circumstances,  not  a  little  expedient  for  the  peace 
and  union  of  the  colonies  amongst  themselves,  as  well  as  for 
their  perfect  harmony  with  Great  Britain.5  Thinking  so,  ( per- 

5   The  wiedoin  of  Burke's  doctrine  of  "  au  unlimited  legislative  power  over 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  33 

haps  erroneously,  but  being  honestly  of  that  opinion?)  I  was  at 
the  same  time  very  sure  that  the  authority  of  which  I  was  so 
jealous  could  not,  under  the  actual  circumstances  of  our  plan- 
tations, be  at  all  preserved  in  any  of  its  members,  but  by  the 
greatest  reserve  in  its  application,  particularly  in  those  delicate 
points  in  which  the  feelings  of  mankind  are  the  most  irritable. 
They  who  thought  otherwise  have  found  a  few  more  difficulties 
in  their  work  than  ( I  hope )  they  were  thoroughly  aware  of, 
when  they  undertook  the  present  business.  I  must  beg  leave 
to  observe,  that  it  is  not  only  the  invidious  branch  of  taxation 
that  will  be  resisted,  but  that  no  other  given  part  of  legislative 
rights  ran  be  exercised,  without  regard  to  the  general  opinion 
of  those  who  are  to  be  governed.  That  general  opinion  is  the 
vehicle  and  organ  of  legislative  omnipotence.  Without  this,  it 
may  be  a  theory  to  entertain  the  mind,  but  it  is  nothing  in  the 
direction  of  aiTairs.  The  completeness  of  the  legislative  au- 
thority of  Parliament  <»'<r  this  Jt&ngdotn  is  not  questioned  ;  and 
yet  many  tilings  indubitably  included  in  the  abstract  idea  of 
that  power,  and  which  carry  no  absolute  injustice  in  them- 
selves, \et  being  contrary  to  the  opinions  and  feelings  of  the 
people.  <;in  as  little  IK- exercised  as  it  Parliament  in  that  case 
had  been  possessed  of  no  right  at  all.  I  see  no  abstract  reason 
which  can  be  given,  why  the  same  power  which  made  and  re- 
pealed the  High  Commission  Court  and  Star-Chamber  might 
not  n-vive  them  again  ;''  and  these  courts,  warned  by  their  for- 
mer late,  might  posMhly  exercise  their  powers  with  some  degree 
of  justice.  JJut  the  madness  would  be  as  unquestionable  as  the 
competence  of  that  Parliament  which  should  attempt  such 
thing-*,  If  any  thing  can  be  supposed  out  of  the  power  of  hu- 
man legislature,  it  is  religion  ;  I  admit,  however,  that  the  estab- 
lished  religion  of  this  coumry  has  been  three  or  four  times 
•altered  by  Act  of  Parliament,  and  therefore  that  a  statute  binds 

I  lie  colonies"  is  still  questioned  by  many.    Pitt  the  elder  denied  the  existence 

of  any  such  high   imperial   authority,  and  the  colonial  leaders  all  agreed  with 

him.     Hut  something  substantially  equivalent  .to  it  was  found  necessary  by  the 

•:iies  after  their  independence  \vas  established,  and  is  in  fact  claimed  and 

•i~ed  l>y  our  National  Government  to  this  day. 

<;  The  <'ourt.  of  High  <  ommi.-sion  was  established  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  in 
l.V-J,  as  the  organ  of  her  ecelesia.-tieal  supremacy.  Jt,  consisted  of  forty-four 
members,  twelve  of  whom  were  clergymen;  and  three  made  a  quorum.  The 
1 1  was  armed  with  full  inquisitorial  powers  over  all  sorts  of  persons,  and  in 
all  matters  of  action  and  opinion,  and  was  above  all  legal  cheek  and  control. 
And  UK.;  proceedings  of  tins  terrible  engine  were  so  well  in  keeping  with  its 
nature,  that  it  became  utterly  intolerable,  and  was  abolished  by  the  Long  IVr- 
liament  in  Kill.  The  Star-Chamber  Court,  a  much  older  establishment,  having 
jurisdiction  m  chil  cases,  and  clothed  with  like  discretionary  powers,  was  a  uo 
lebd  hateful  engine  of  tyranny,  and  fell  at  the  same  time. 


34  BURKE. 

even  in  that  case.  But  we  may  very  safely  affirm  that,  not- 
withstanding this  apparent  omnipotence,  it  would  be  now  found 
as  impossible  for  King  and  Parliament  to  alter  the  established 
religion  of  this  country  as  it  was  to  King  James  alone,  when  he 
attempted  to  make  such  an  alteration  without  a  Parliament. 
In  effect,  to  follow,  not  to  force,  the  public  inclination, —to 
give  a  direction,  a  form,  a  technical  dress,  and  a  specific  sane-  • 
tion,  to  the  general  sense  of  the  community,  is  the  true  end  of 
legislature. 

It  is  so  with  regard  to  the  exercise  of  all  the  powers  which  our 
Constitution  knows  in  any  of  its  parts,  and  indeed  to  the  sub- 
stantial existence  of  any  of  the  parts  themselves.  The  King's 
negative  to  bills  is  one  of  the  most  undisputed  of  the  royal  pre- 
rogatives ;  and  it  extends  to  all  cases  whatsoever.  I  nm  far 
from  certain  that,  if  several  laws,  which  I  know,  had  fallen 
under  the  stroke  of  that  sceptre,  the  public  would  have  had  a- 
very  heavy  loss.  But  it  is  not  the  propriety  of  the  exercise 
which  is  in  question.  The  exercise  it>ell'  is  wisely  1'orhorpe. 
Its  repose  may  be  the  preservation  of  its  existence  ;  and  its  ex- 
istence maybe  the  means  of  saving  the  Constitution  itself,  on 
an  occasion  worthy  of  bringing  it  forth. 

As  the  disputants  whose  accurate  and  logical  reasonings  have 
brought  us  into  our  present  condition  think  it  absurd  that 
powers  or  members  of  any  constitution  should  exist,  rarely,  if 
ever,  to  be  exercised,  I  hope  I  shall  be  excused  in  mentioning 
another  instance  that  is  material.  We  know  that  the  Coin  oca- 
tion  of  the  Clergy  had  formerly  been  called,  and  sat  with  nearly 
as  much  regularity  to  business  as  Parliament  itself.7  It  is  now 
called  for  form  only.  It  sits  for  the  purpose  of  making  some 
polite  ecclesiastical  compliments  to  the  King,  and,  when  that 
grace  is  said,  retires  and  is  heard  of  no  more.  It  is,  however,  a 
part  of  the  Constitution,  and  may  be  called  out  into  act  and  en- 
ergy, whenever  there  is  occasion,  and  whenever  those  who  con- 
jure up  that  spirit  will  choose  to  abide  the  consequences.  It  is 
wise  to  permit  its  legal  existence:  it  is  much  wiser  to  continue 
it  a  legal  existence  only.  80  truly  has  prudence  (constituted 
as  the  god  of  this  lower  world)  the  entire  dominion  over  every 
exercise  of  power  committed  into  its  hands!  And  yet  I  have 
lived  to  see  prudence  and  conformity  to  circumstances  wholly 

7  The  Convocation  of  the  Clergy,  with  its  Upper  and  Lower  Houses,  is  the 
ancient  Church  Legislature  of  England.  For  nearly  two  hundred  years  all  its 
law-making  functions  have  been  practically  exercised  by  Parliament ;  though 
its  formal  existence  is  still  kept  up,  :<s  described  in  the  text.  In  its  later  • 
ings  with  actual  business,  it  grew  to  be  such  an  unmanageable  incendiary,  so 
gusty  and  tempestuous  with  theological  rend.-,  and  rancours,  that  the  nation  be- 
came  afraid  to  trust  it  with  any  actual  power. 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  35 

set  at  nought  in  our  late  controversies,  and  treated  as  if  they 
were  the  most  contemptible  and  irrational  of  till  things.  I  have 
hoard  it  an  hundred  times  very  gravely  alleged  that,  in  order  to 
keep  power  in  mind,  it  was  necessary,  hy  preference,  to  exert  it 
in  those  very  points  in  which  it  was  most  likely  to  be  resisted 
and  the  least  likely  to  he  productive  of  any  advantage. 

These  were  the  considerations,  Gentlemen,  which  led  me 
early  to  think  that,  in  the  comprehensive  dominion  which  the 
Divine  "Providence  had  pat  into  our  hands,  instead  of  troubling 
our  understandings  with  speculations  concerning  the  unity  of 
empire  and  the  identity  or  distinction  of  legislative  powers, 
and  inllaming  our  passions  with  the  heat  and  pride  of  contro- 
versy, it,  was  our  duty,  in  ail  soberness,  to  conform  our  govern- 
ment to  the  character  and  circumstances  of  the  several  people 
who  composed  this  mighty  and  strangely-diversified  mass.  L 
never  was  wild  enough  to  conceive  that  one  method  would  serve; 
for  the  whole  ;  that  the  natives  of  Jlindostan  and  those  of  Vir- 
ginia could  be  ordered  in  the  same  manner,  or  thai  the  ( 'utchery 
court s  and  tin-  grand  jury  of  Salem  could  be  regulated  on  a  sim- 
ilar plan.  1  was  persuaded  that  government  was  a  practical 
thing,  made  for  the  happiness  of  mankind,  and  not  to  furnish 
out  a  spectacle  of  unitormit y  to  grat ify  the  schemes  of  vision- 
ary politicians.  Our  business  was  to  rule,  not  to  wrangle  ;  ami 
it  would  have  been  a  poor  compensation  that,  we  had  triumphed 
in  a  dispute,  whilst  we  lost  an  empire. 

Jf  there  he  one  fact  in  the  world  perfectly  clear,  it  is  this, — 
"that  the  disposition  of  the  people  of  America  is  wholly  averse 
to  any  other  than  a  free  government.";  and  this  is  indication 
enough  to  any  honest  statesman  how  he  ought  to  adapt  what- 
ever power  he  finds  in  his  hands  to  their  case.  If  any  ask  me, 
what  a  free,  government  is,  I  answer  that,  for  any  practical  pur- 
pose, it  is  what  the  people  think  so,— ami  that  they,  and  not  I, 
are  the  natural,  lawful,  and  competent  judges  of  this  matter, 
ii  they  practically  allow  me  a  greater  degree  of  authority  over 
them  than  is  consistent  with  any  correct,  ideas  of  perfect  free- 
dom, I  ought  to  thank  them  for  so  great  a  trust,  and  not  to  en- 
deavour to  prove  from  thence  that  they  have  reasoned  amiss, 
and  that,  having  gone  so  far,  by  analogy  they  must  hereafter 
ha\e  no  enjoyment  but  by  my  pleasure. 

If  we  had  seen  this  done  by  any  others,  A\  e  should  have  con- 
•  hided  them  far  gone  in  madness.  If  is  melancholy,  as  well  as 
ridiculous  to  observe  the  kind  of  reasoning  with  which  the 
public  ha>  been  .mii-ed,  in  order  to  divert  our  minds  from  the 

8  Cutch  in  tlio  liana:  of  a  province,  and  also  of  a  gulf,  on  the  western  coast  of 
Hindustan,  near  the  mouths  of  the  river  Indus. 


36  BURKE. 

common  sense  of  our  American  policy.  There  are  people  \vlio 
have  split  and  anatomized  the  doctrine  of  free  government,  as 
if  it  were  an  abstract  question  concerning  metaphysical  liberty 
and  necessity,  and  not  a  matter  of  moral  prudence  and  natural 
feeling.  They  have  disputed  whether  liberty  be  a  positive  or  a 
negative  idea  ;  whether  it  does  not  consist  in  being  governed  by 
laws,  without  considering  what  are  the  laws,  or  who  an-  the 
makers  ;  whether  man  lias  any  rights  by  Nature  ;  and  whether 
all  the  property  he  enjoys  be  not  the  alms  of  his  government, 
and  his  life  itself  their  favour  and  indulgence.  Others,  cor- 
rupting religion  as  these  have  perverted  philosophy,  contend 
that  Christians  are  redeemed  into  captivity,  and  the  blood  of 
the  Saviour  of  mankind  has  been  shed  to  make  them  the  slaves 
of  a  few  proud  and  insolent  sinners.  These  shocking  extremes 
provoking  to  extremes  of  another  kind,  speculations  are  let 
loose  as  destructive  to  all  authority  as  the  former  are  to  all  free- 
dom; and  every  government  is  called  tyranny  and  usurpation 
which  is  not  formed  on  their  fancies.  In  this  manner  the  stir- 
rers-up  of  this  contention,  not  satisfied  with  distracting  our  de- 
pendencies and  tilling  them  with  blood  and  slaughter,  are  cor- 
rupting our  understandings  :  they  an-  endeavouring  to  tear  up, 
along  with  practical  liberty,  all  the  foundations  of  human 
society,  all  equity  and  justice,  religion  and  order. 

Civil  freedom,  Gentlemen,  is  not,  as  many  have  endeavoured 
to  persuade  you,  a  thing  that  lies  hid  in  the  depth  of  abstruse 
science.  It  is  a  blessing  and  a  benefit,  not  an  abstract  specula- 
tion; and  all  the  just  reasoning  that  can  be  upon  it  is  of  so 
coarse  a  texture  as  perfectly  to  suit  the  ordinary  capacities  of 
those  who  are  to  enjoy,  and  of  those  who  are  to  defend  it.  Far 
from  any  resemblance  to  those  propositions  in  geometry  and 
metaphysics  which  admit  no  medium,  but  must  be  true  or  false 
in  all  their  latitude,  social  and  civil  freedom,  like  all  other 
things  in  common  life,  are  variously  mixed  and  modified,  en- 
joyed in  very  different  degrees,  and  shaped  into  an  infinite  di- 
versity of  forms,  according  to  the  temper  and  circumstan 
every  community.  The  extreme  of  liberty  (which  is  its  ub>trart 
perfection,  but  its  real  fault )  obtains  nowhere,  nor  ought  to  ob- 
tain anywhere ;  because  extremes,  as  we  all  know,  in  . 
point  which  relates  either  to  our  duties  or  satisfactions  in  life, 
are  destructive  both  to  virtue  and  enjoyment.  Liberty,  too, 
must  be  limited  in  order  to  be  possessed.  The  degree  of  re- 
straint it  is  impossible  in  any  case  to  settle  precisely.  But  it 
ought  to  be  the  constant  aim  of  every  wise  public  counsel  to 
find  out  by  cautious  experiments,  and  rational,  cool  endeavours, 
with  how  little,  not  how  much,  of  this  restraint  the  community 
can  subsist :  for  liberty  is  a  good  to  be  improved,  and  not  an 


LETTER   TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  37 

evil  to  be  lessened.  It  is  not  only  a  private  blessing  of  the  first 
order,  but  the  vital  spring  and  energy  of  the  State  itself,  which 
has  just  so  much  life  and  vigour  as  there  is  liberty  in  it.  But, 
whether  liberty  be  advantageous  or  not,  (for  I  know  it  is  a  fash- 
ion to  decry  the  principle,)  none  will  dispute  that  peace  is  a 
blessing;  and  peace  must,  in  the  course  of  human  affairs,  be 
frequently  bought  by  some  indulgence  and  toleration  at  least  to 
liberty:  for,  as  the  Sabbath  (though  of  Divine  institution)  was 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath,  government,  which  can 
claim  no  higher  origin  or  authority,  in  its  exercise  at  least  ought 
to  conform  to  the  exigencies  of  the  time,  and  the  temper  and 
character  of  the  people  with  whom  it  is  concerned,  and  not 
always  to  attempt  violently  to  bend  the  people  to  their  theories 
of  subjection.  The  bulk  of  mankind,  on  their  part,  are  not  ex- 
ly  curious  concerning  any  theories  whilst  they  are  really 
happy;  and  one  sure  symptom  of  an  ill-conducted  Stato  is  the 
propensity  of  the  people  to  resort  to  them. 

13 ut  when  subjects,  by  a  long  course  of  such  ill  conduct,  are 
once  thoroughly  inflamed,  and  the  State  itself  violently  dis- 
tempered, the  people  must  have  some  satisfaction  to  their 
feelings  more  solid  than  a  sophistical  speculation  on  law  and 
government.  Such  was  our  situation:  and  such  a  satisfaction 
was  necessary  t:>  prevent  recourse  to  arms;  it,  was  necessary 
towards  la\ing  them  down  ;  it  will  be  necessar\  to  prevent  the 
taking  them  up  again  and  again.  Of  what  nature  this  satisfac- 
tion ought  to  be,  I  wish  it  had  horn  the  disposition  of  Parlia-. 
nieiit  seriously  to  consider.  It  was  certainly  a  deliberation  that 
called  for  the  exertion  of  all  their  wisdom. 

lam,  and  ever  have  boon,  deeply  sensible  of  the  difficulty  of 
reconciling  t ho  strong  presiding  power,  that  is  so  useful  towards 
the  conservation  of  a  vast,  disconnected,  infinitely  diversified 
empire,  with  that  liberty  and  safety  of  the  provinces  which  they 
mu.-t  enjoy,  (in  opinion  and  practice  at  least,)  or  they  will  not 
b<  provinces  at  all.  I  know,  and  have  long  felt,  the  difficulty  of 
reconciling  the  unwieldy  haughtiness  of  a  great  ruling  nation, 
habituated  to  command,  pampered  by  enormous  wealth,  and 
confident  from  a  long  course  of  prosperity  and  victory,  to  the 
.liiit  of  free  dependencies,  animated  with  the  first  glow 
and  activity  of  juvenile  boat,  and  assuming  to  themselves,  as 
their  birthright,  some  purl,  of  that  very  pride  which  oppresses 
them.  They  who  perceive  no  difficulty  in  reconciling  these  tem- 
which,  however,  to  make  peace,  must,  some  way  or  other 
•••nciled  are  much  above  my  capacity,  or  much  below  the 
magnitude  of  I  he  business.  Of  one  thing  I  am  perfectly  clear,  — 
that  it  is  nol  by  deciding  the  suit,  but  by  compromising  the  dif- 
ference, that  peace  can  be  restored  or  kept.  They  who  would 


38  BURKE. 

put  an  end  to  such  quarrels  by  declaring  roundly  in  favour  of 
the  whole  demands  of  either  party  have  mistaken,  in  my  hum- 
ble opinion,  the  office  of  a  mediator. 

The  war  is  now  of  full  two  years'  standing ;  the  controversy 
of  many  more.  In  different  periods  of  the  dispute,  different 
methods  of  reconciliation  were  to  be  pursued.  I  mean  to 
trouble  you  with  a  short  state  of  things  at  the  most  important 
of  these  periods,  in  order  to  give  you  a  more  distinct  idea  of  our 
policy  with  regard  to  this  most  delicate  of  all  objects.  The  col- 
onies were  from  the  beginning  subject  to  the  legislature  of 
Great  Britain  on  principles  which  they  never  examined ;  and 
we  permitted  to  them  many  local  privileges,  without  asking  how 
they  agreed  with  that  legislative  authority.  Modes  of  admin- 
istration were  formed  in  an  insensible  and  very  unsystematic 
manner.  But  they  gradually  adapted  themselves  to  the  varying 
condition  of  things.  What  was  first  a  single  kingdom  stretched 
into  an  empire  ;  and  an  imperial  snperintendency,  of  some  kind 
or  other,  became  necessary.  Parliament,  from  a  mere  represen- 
tative of  the  people,  and  a  guardian  of  popular  privileges  lor  its 
own  immediate  constituents,  grew  into  a  mighty  sovereign.  In- 
stead of  being  a  control  on  the  Crown  on  its  own  behalf,  it  com- 
municated a  sort  of  strength  to  the  royal  authority,  which  was 
wanted  for  the  conservation  of  a  new  object,  but  which  could 
not  be  safely  trusted  to  the  Crown  alone.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  colonies,  advancing  by  equal  steps,  and  governed  by  the 
same  necessity,  had  formed  within  themselves,  either  by  royal 
instruction  or  royal  charter,  assemblies  so  exceedingly  i 
bling  a  parliament,  in  all  their  forms,  functions,  and  po\\ers, 
that  it  was  impossible  they  should  not  imbibe  some  opinion  of 
a  similar  authority. 

At  the  first  designation  of  these  assemblies,  they  were  proba- 
bly not  intended  for  any  thing  more  ( nor  perhaps  did  they  think 
themselves  much  higher)  than  the  municipal  corporations 
within  this  island,  to  which  some  at  present  love  to  compare 
them.  But  nothing  in  progression  can  rest  on  its  original  plan. 
We  may  as  well  think  of  rocking  a  grown  man  in  the  cradle  of 
an  infant.  Therefore,  as  the  colonies  prospered  and  increased 
to  a  numerous  and  mighty  people,  spreading  over  a  ver\ 
tract  of  the  globe,  it  was  natural  that  they  should  attribute  to 
assemblies  so  respectable  in  their  formal  constitution  some  part 
of  the  dignity  of  the  great  nations  which  they  represented.  Xo 
longer  tied  to  by-laws,  these  assemblies  made  Acts  of  all  sorts 
and  in  all  cases  whatsoever.  They  levied  money,  not  for  paro- 
chial purposes,  but  upon  regular  grants  to  the  Crown,  following 
all  the  rules  and  principles  of  a  parliament,  to  which  they  ap- 
proached every  day  more  and  more  nearly.  Those  who  think 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  39 

themselves  wiser  than  Providence  and  stronger  than  the  course 
of  Xature  may  complain  of  all  this  variation,  on  the  one  side  or 
the  other,  as  their  several  humours  and  prejudices  may  lead 
them.  But  things  could  not  be  otherwise ;  and  English  colo- 
nies must  be  had  on  these  terms,  or  not  had  at  all.  In  the  mean 
time  neither  party  felt  any  inconvenience  from  this  double  leg- 
islature, to  which  they  had  been  formed  by  imperceptible  habits, 
and  old  custom,  the  great  support  of  all  the  governments  in  the 
world.  Though  these  two  legislatures  were  sometimes  found 
perhaps  performing  the  very  same  functions,  they  did  not  very 
grossly  or  systematically  clash.  In  all  likelihood  this  arose  from 
inert-  neglect,  possibly  from  the  natural  operation  of  things, 
which,  left  to  themselves,  generally  fall  into  their  proper  order. 
But,  whatever  was  the  cause,  it  is  certain  that  a  regular  reve- 
nue, by  the  authority  of  Parliament,  for  the  support  of  civil  and 
military  establishments,  seems  not  to  have  been  thought  of 
until  the  colonies  were  too  proud  to  submit,  too  strong  to  be 
forced,  too  enlightened  not  to  see  all  the  consequences  which 
must  arise  from  such  a  system. 

Jt  ever  this  scheme  of  taxation  was  to  be  pushed  against  the 
inclinations  of  the  people,  it  was  evident  that  discussions  must; 
arise,  which  would  let  loose  nil  the  elements  that  composed  this 
double  constitution,  would  show  how  much  each  of  their  mem- 
bers had  .departed  from  its  original  principles,  and  would  dis- 
cover contradictions  in  each  legislature,  as  well  to  its  own  first 
principles  as  to  its  relation  to  the  other,  very  difficult,  if  not 
absolutely  impossible,  in  be  reconciled. 

Therefore,  ;it  the  first  fatal  opening  of  this  contest,  the  wisest 
course  seemed  to  be  to  put  an  end  as  soon  as  possible,  to  the 
immediate  causes  of  the  dispute,  and  to  quiet  a  discussion,  not 
easily  settled  upon  clenr  principles,  and  arising  from  claims 
which  pride  would  permit  neither  party  to  al  tan  don,  by  resort- 
ing as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  old,  successful  course.  A  mere 
repeal  of  the  obnoxious  tax,  with  a  declaration  of  the  legisla- 
tive authority  of  this  kingdom,  was  then  fully  sufficient  to  pro- 
cure peace  to  Imtli  .Wr.s.  Man  is  a  creature  of  habit,  and,  the 
fu->t  breach  being  of  very  short  continuance,  the  colonies  fell 
bark  exactly  into  their  ancient  state.  The  Congress  has  used 
--ion  with  regard  to  this  pacification  which  appears  to 
me  truly  significant.  After  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  "the 
colonies  fell,"  says  this  assembly,  "into  their  ancient  state  of 
'''/»'/  n>,,fni< /irc  in  the  mother  country."  This  unsuspecting 
confidence  is  the  true  centre  of  gravity  amongst  mankind,  about 
which  all  the  pails  are  at  rest.  It  is  this  unsu*jtcrtin</  confidence 
that  removes  all  dillicult  ies,  and  reconciles  all  the  contradictions 
which  occur  in  the  complexity  of  all  ancient  puzzled  political 


40  BURKE. 

establishments.  Happy  are  the  rulers  which  have  the  secret  of 
preserving  it ! 

The  whole  empire  has  reason  to  remember  with  eternal  grati- 
tude the  wisdom  and  temper  of  that  man  and  his  excellent 
associates  who,  to  recover  this  confidence,  formed  a  plan  of 
pacification  in  1706.  That  plan,  being  built  upon  the  nature  of 
man  and  the  circumstances  and  habits  of  the  two  countries,  and 
not  on  any  visionary  speculations,  perfectly  answered  its  end, 
as  long  as  it  was  thought  proper  to  adhere  to  it.  "Without  giv- 
ing a  rude  shock  to  the  dignity  (well  or  ill  understood)  of  this 
Parliament,  they  gave  perfect  content  to  our  dependencies. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  mediatorial  spirit  and  talents  of  that 
great  man  between  such  clashing  pretentious  and  passions,  we 
should  then  have  rushed  headlong  ( I  know  what  I  say )  into 
the  calamities  of  that  civil  war  in  which,  by  departing  from  his 
system,  we  are  at  length  involved;  and  we  should  have  lieeii 
precipitated  into  that  war  at  a  time  when  cireinnstances  both  at 
home  and  abroad  were  far,  very  far,  more  unfavourable  to  us 
than  they  were  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  present  troubles. 

I  had  the  happiness  of  giving  my  first  votes  in  Parliament  for 
that  pacification.  I  was  one  of  those  almost  unanimous  mem- 
bers who,  in  the  necessary  concessions  of  Parliament,  would  as 
much  as  possible  have  preserved  its  authority  and  respected  its 
honour.  I  could  not  at  once  tear  from  my  heart  prejudices 
which  were  dear  to  me,  and  which  bore  a  resemblance  to  virtue. 
I  had  then,  and  I  have  still,  my  partialities.  "What  Parliament 
gave  up  I  wished  to  be  given  as  of  grace  and  favour  and  affec- 
tion, and  not  as  a  restitution  of  stolen  goods.  High  dignity  re- 
lented as  it  was  soothed;  and  a  benignity  from  old  acknowl- 
edged greatness  had  its  full  effect  on  our  dependencies.  Our 
unlimited  declaration  of  legislative  authority  produced  not  a 
single  murmur.  If  this  undefined  power  has  become  odious 
since  that  time,  and  full  of  horror  to  the  colonies,  it  is  because 
the  unsuspicious  confidence  is  lost,  find  the  parental  affection,  in 
the  bosom  of  whose  boundless  authority  they  reposed  their 
privileges,  is  become  estranged  and  hostile. 

It  will  be  asked,  if  such  was  then  my  opinion  of  the  mode  of 
pacification,  how  I  came  to  be  the  very  person  who  moved,  not 
only  for  a  repeal  of  all  the  late  coercive  statutes,  but  for  muti- 
lating, by  a  positive  law,  the  entireness  of  the  legislative  power 
of  Parliament,  and  cutting  off  from  it  the  whole  right  of  taxa- 
tion. I  answer,  Because  a  different  state  of  things  requires  a 
different  conduct.  When  the  dispute  had  gone  to  these  last  ex- 
tremities, (which  no  man  laboured  more  to  prevent  than  I  did,) 
the  concessions  which  had  satisfied  in  the  beginning  could  sat- 
isfy no  longer ;  because  the  violation  of  tacit  faith  required  ex- 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  41 

plicit  security.  The  same  cause  which  has  introduced  all 
formal  compacts  and  covenants  among  men  made  it  necessary: 
I  mean,  habits  of  soreness,  jealousy,  and  distrust.  I  parted  with 
it  as  with  a  limb,  but  as  a  limb  to  save  the  body:  and  I  would 
have  parted  with  more,  if  more  had  been  necessary ;  any  thing 
rather  than  a  fruitless,  hopeless,  unnatural  civil  war.  This 
mode  of  yielding  would,  it  is  said,  give  way  to  independency 
without  a  war.  I  am  persuaded,  from  the  nature  of  things,  and 
from  every  information,  that  it  would  have  had  a  directly  con- 
trary effect.  But  if  it  had  this  effect,  I  confess  that  I  should 
prefer  independency  without  war  to  independency  with  it ;  and 
I  have  so  much  trust  in  the  inclinations  and  prejudices  of  man- 
kind, and  so  little,  in  any  thing  else,  that  I  should  expect  ten 
times  more  benefit  to  this  kingdom  from  the  affection  of 
America,  though  under  a  separate  establishment,  than  from  her 
perfect  submission  to  the  Crown  and  Parliament,  accompanied 
with  her  terror,  disgust,  and  abhorrence.  Bodies  tied  together 
by  so  unnatural  a  bond  of  union  as  mutual  hatred  are  only  con- 
nected  to  their  ruin. 

One  hundred  and  ten  respectable  members  of  Parliament 
voted  for  that  concession.  Many  not  present  when  the  motion 
was  made  were  of  the  sentiments  of  those  who  voted.  1  knew 
it  would  then  have  made  peace.  I  am  not  without  hopes  that 
it  would  do  so  at  present,  if  it  were  adopted.  No  benefit,  no 
revenue,  could  be  ]«»st  by  it ;  something  might  possibly  be 
gained  by  its  consequences.  For  be  fully  assured  that,  of  all 
the  phantoms  that  ever  deluded  the  fond  hopes  of  a  credulous 
world,  a  Parliamentary  revenue  in  the  colonies  is  the  most  per- 
fectly chimerical.  Your  breaking  them  to  any  subjection,  far 
from  relieving  your  burdens,  (the  pretext  for  this  war,)  will 
pay  that  military  force  which  will 'be  kept  up  to  the  de- 
struction of  their  liberties  and  yours.  I  risk  nothing  in  this 
prophecy. 

(.entlemen,  you  have  my  opinions  on  the  present  state  of 
public  affairs.  ^\Iean  as  they  may  be  in  themselves,  your  par- 
iiality  has  made  them  of  .some  importance.  Without  troubling 
t  to  inquire  whether  I  am  under  a  formal  obligation  to  it, 
I  have  a  pleasure  in  accounting  for  my  conduct  to  my  constitu- 
ent-. I  feel  warmly  on  this  subject,  and  I  express  myself  as  I 
]'••«•!.  If  I  presume  to  blame  any  public  proceeding,  I  cannot  be 
supposed  to  be  personal.  Would  to  God  I  could  be  suspected 
of  it!  My  fault  might  be  greater,  but  the  public  calamity 
would  be  le-s  extensive.  If  my  conduct  has  not  been  able  to 
make  any  impre-sion  on  the  warm  part  of  that  ancient  and  pow- 
erful party  with  whoso  support  I  was -not  honoured  at  my 


42  BURKE. 

election,  on  my  side,  my  respect,  regard,  and  duty  to  them  is 
not  at  all  lessened.  I  owe  the  gentleman  who  compose  it  my 
most  humble  service  in  every  thing.  I  hope  that,  whenever 
any  of  them  were  pleased  to  command  me,  they  found  me  per- 
fectly equal  in  my  obedience.  But  flattery  and  friendship  are 
very  different  things  ;  and  to  mislead  is  not  to  serve  them.  I 
cannot  purchase  the  favour  of  any  man  by  concealing  from  him 
what  I  think  his  ruin. 

By  the  favour  of  my  fellow-citizens,  I  am  the  representative 
of  an  honest,  well-ordered,  virtuous  city,— of  a  people  who  pre- 
serve more  of  the  original  English  simplicity  and  purity  of 
manners  than  perhaps  any  other.  You  possess  finning  you  sev- 
eral men  and  magistrates  of  large  and  cultivated  undetttandings, 
fit  for  any  employment  in  any  sphere.  I  do,  to  the  best  of  my 
power,  act  so  as  to  make  myself  worthy  of  so  honourable  a 
choice.  If  I  were  ready,  on  any  call  of  my  own  vanity  or  in- 
terest, or  to  answer  any  election  purpose,  to  forsake  principles 
(whatever  they  are)  which  I  had  formed  at  a  mature  age,  on 
full  reflection,  and  which  had  been  confirmed  by  long  experi- 
ence, I  should  forfeit  the  only  thing  which  makes  you  pardon 
so  many  errors  and  imperfections  in  me. 

Not  that  T  think  it  fit  for  'any  one  to  rely  too  mucli  on  his 
own  understanding,  or  to  be  filled  with  a  presumption  not 
becoming  a  Christian  man  in  his  own  personal  stability  and 
rectitude.  I  hope  I  am  far  from  that  vain  confidence  which 
almost  always  fails  in  trial.  I  know  my  weakness  in  all  re- 
spects, as  much  at  least  as  any  enemy  1  have  :  and  I  attempt  to 
take  security  against  it.  The  only  method  which  has  ever  been 
found  effectual  to  preserve  any  man  against  the  corruption  of 
nature  and  example  is  an  habit  of  life  and  communication  of 
counsels  with  the  most  virtuous  and  public-spirited  men  of  the 
age  you  live  in.  Such  a  society  cannot  be  kept  without  advan- 
tage, or  deserted  without  shame.  For  this  rule  of  conduct  I 
may  be  called  in  reproach  ^pcirtu  man;  but  I  am  little  affected 
with  such  aspersions.  In  the  way  which  they  call  party  I  wor- 
ship the  Constitution  of  your  fathers  ;  and  I  shall  never  blush 
for  my  political  company.  All  reverence  to  honour,  all  idea  of 
what  it  is,  will  be  lost  out  of  the  world,  before  it  can  be  imputed 
as  a  fault  to  any  man,  that  he  has  been  closely  connected  with 
those  incomparable  persons,  living  and  dead,  with  whom  for 
eleven  years  I  have  constantly  thought  and  acted.  If  I  have 
wandered  out  of  the  paths  of  rectitude  into  those  of  interested 
faction,  it  was  in  company  with  the  Saviles,  the  Dowdeswells, 
the  Wentworths,  the  Bentincks;9  with  the  Lenoxes,  the  Man- 

9    Bentinck  was  the  family  name  of  the  Duke  of  Portland,  then  one  of  the 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  43 

chesters,  the  Keppels,  the  Saunderses ;  with  the  temperate, 
permanent,  hereditary  virtue  of  the  whole  House  of  Caven- 
dish:1 names  among  which  some  have  extended  your  fame 
and  empire  in  arms,  and  all  have  fought  the  battle  of  your 
liberties  in  fields  not  less  glorious.  These,  and  many  more  like 
these,  grafting  public  principles  on  private  honour,  have  re- 
deemed the  present  age,  and  would  have  adorned  the  most 
splendid  period  in  your  history.  Where  could  any  man,  con- 
scious of  his  own  inability  to  act  alone,  and  willing  to  act  as  he 
ought  to  do,  have  arranged  himself  better?  If  any  one  thinks 
this  kind  of  society  to  be  taken  up  as  the  best  method  of  grati- 
fying low  personal  pride  or  ambitious  interest,  he  is  mistaken, 
and  kno\<8  nothing  of  the  world. 

Preferring  this  connection,  I  do  not  mean  to  detract  in  the 
slightest  degree  from  others.  There  are  some  of  those  whom  I 
admire  at  something  of  a  greater  distance,  with  whom  I  have 
hud  the  happiness  also  perfectly  to  agree,  in  almost  all  the  par- 
ticulars in  which  I  have  differed  with  some  successive  adminis- 
trations ;  and  they  are  such  as  it  never  can  be  reputable  to  any 
government  to  reckon  among  its  enemies. 

I  hope  there  are  none  of  you  corrupted  with  the  doctrine 
taught  by  wicked  men  for  the  worst  purposes,  and  received  by 
the  malignant  credulity  of  envy  aud  ignorance,  which  is,  that 
the  men  who  act  upon  the  public  stage  are  all  alike,  all  equally 
corrupt,  all  influenced  by  no  other  views  than  the  sordid  lure  of 
salary  and  pension.  The  thing  I  know  by  experience  to  be 
false.  Never  expecting  to  find  perfection  in  men,  and  not 
looking  for  Divine  attributes  in  created  beings,  in  my  commerce 
with  my  contemporaries  I  have  found  much  human  virtue.  I 
have  seen  not  a  little  public  spirit,  a  real  subordination  of 
interest  to  duty,  and  a  decent  and  regulated  sensibility  to  hon- 
est fame  and  reputation.  The  age  unquestionably  produces 
( *.\  helher  in  a  greater  or  less  number  than  former  times  I  know 
not  )  daring  profligates  and  insidious  hypocrites.  What  then? 
Am  I  not  to  avail  myself  of  whatever  good  is  to  be  found  in  the 

lending  Whig  peers.  Charles  Watson  Wentworth,  Marquess  of  Ilockinghnni, 
was  the,  leading  Wlii;,r  peer.  When  the  Whigs  came  into  power,  first  in  17(>.~>,  and 
again  in  178-2,  lie  was  called  to  the  post  of  Trime  Minister.  William  Dowdeswcll 
was  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  the  first  llockingham  administration.  A 
man  of  no  pretension  or  show,  but  of  great  ability  and  worth,  who  stood 
bhoulder  to  shoulder  with  Burke  nil  through  those  years  of  struggle,  till  hid 
death  in  177<>. 

\    ('arentlish  was,  ns  it  still  is,  the  family  name  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire. 

Lord  John  Cavendish,  brother  of  the  Duke,  was  one  of  the  leading  Whigs  in  tho 

•  I'  Commons.    Ife  was  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  the  second  llock- 

ingliam  administration,  nnd  was  one  of  Burkc'ri  warmest  anil  staunchest  per- 

Bonal  friends. 


44  BUHKE. 

world,  because  of  the' mixture  of  evil  that  will  always  be  in  it? 
The  smallness  of  the  quantity  in  currency  only  heightens  the 
value.  They  who  raise  suspicions  on  the  good  on  account  of  the 
behaviour  of  ill  men  are  of  the  party  of  the  latter.  The  com- 
mon cant  is  no  justification  for  taking  this  party.  I  have  been 
deceived,  they  say,  by  Tttius  and  3Iccrius;  I  have  been  the  dupe 
of  this  pretender  or  of  that  mountebank ;  and  I  can  trust  ap- 
pearances no  longer.  But  my  credulity  and  want  of  discern- 
ment cannot,  as  I  conceive,  amount  to  a  fair  presumption 
against  any  man's  integrity.  A  conscientious  person  would 
rather  doubt  his  own  judgment  than  condemn  his  species.  He 
would  say,  "I  have  observed  without  attention,  or  judged  upon 
erroneous  maxims ;  I  trusted  to  profession,  when  I  ought  to 
have  attended  to  conduct."  Such  a  man  will  grow  wise,  not 
malignant,  by  his  acquaintance  with  the  world.  But  he  that 
accuses  all  mankind  of  corruption  ought  to  remember  that  he 
is  sure  to  convict  only  one.  In  truth,  I  should  much  rather 
admit  those  whom  at  any  time  I  have  disrelished  the  most  to 
be  patterns  of  perfection  than  seek  a  consolation  to  my  own 
unworthiness  in  a  general  communion  of  depravity  with  all 
about  me. 

That  this  ill-natured  doctrine  should  be  preached  by  the  mis- 
sionaries of  a  Court  I.  do  not  wonder.  It  answers  their  purpose. 
But  that  it  should  be  heard  among  those  who  pretend  to  be 
strong  asserters  of  liberty  is  not  only  surprising,  but  hardly 
natural.  This  moral  levelling  is  a  servile  principle.  It  leads  to 
practical  passive  obedience  far  better  than  all  the  doctrines 
which  the  pliant  accommodation  of  theology  to  power  has  ever 
produced.  It  cuts  up  by  the  roots,  not  only  all  idea  of  forcible 
resistance,  but  even  of  civil  opposition.  It  disposes  men  to  an 
abject  submission,  not  by  opinion,  which  may  be  shaken  by  argu- 
ment or  altered  by  passion,  but  by  the  strong  ties  of  public  and 
private  interest.  For,  if  all  men  who  act  in  a  public  situation 
are  equally  selfish,  corrupt,  and  venal,  what  reason  can  be  given 
for  desiring  any  sort  of  change,  which,  besides  the  evils  which 
must  attend  all  changes,  can  be  productive  of  no  possible  ad- 
vantage? The  active  men  in  the  State  are  true  samples  of  the 
mass.  If  they  are  universally  depraved,  the  commonwealth 
itself  is  not  sound.  We  may  amuse  ourselves  with  talking  as 
much  as  we  please  of  the  virtue  of  middle  or  humble  life  ;  that 
is,  we  may  place  our  confidence  in  the  virtue  of  those  who  have 
never  been  tried.  But  if  the  persons  who  are  continually 
emerging  out  of  that  sphere  be  no  better  than  those  Avhom  birth 
has  placed  above  it,  what  hopes  are  there  in  the  remainder  of 
the  body  which  is  to  furnish  the  perpetual  suecession  of  the 
State  ?  All  who  have  ever  written  on  government  are  unani- 


LETTER  TO  THE   SHERIFFS  OF  BRISTOL.  45 

mous,  that  among  a  people  generally  corrupt  liberty  cannot 
long  exist.  And  indeed  how  is  it  possible,  when  those  who  are 
to  make  the  laws,  to  guard,  to  enforce,  or  to  obey  them,  are,  by 
a  tacit  confederacy  of  manners,  indisposed  to  the  spirit  of  all 
generous  and  noble  institutions? 

I  am  aware  that  the  age  is  not  what  we  all  wish.  But  I  am 
sure  that  the  only  means  of  checking  its  precipitate  degeneracy 
.is  heartily  to  concur  with  whatever  is  the  best  in  our  time,  and 
to  have  some  more  correct  standard  of  judging  what  that  best  is 
than  the  transient  and  uncertain  favour  of  a  Court.  If  once  we 
are  able  to  find,  and  can  prevail  on  ourselves  to  strengthen  an 
union  of  such  men,  whatever  accidentally  becomes  indisposed 
to  ill-exorcised  power,  even  by  the  ordinary  operation  of  human 
passions  must  join  with  that  society,  and  cannot  long  be  joined 
without  in  some  degree  assimilating  to  it.  Virtue  will  catch  as 
well  as  vice  by  contact;  and  the  public  stock  of  honest,  manly 
principle  will  daily  accumulate.  We  are  not  too  nicely  to  scru- 
tinize motives  as  long  as  action  is  irreproachable.  It  is  enough 
(and  for  a  worthy  man  perhaps  too  much)  to  deal  out  its  infa- 
my to  convicted  guilt  and  declared  apostasy. 

This,  Gentlemen,  has  been  from  the  beginning  the  rule  of  my 
conduct ;  and  I  mean  to  continue  it,  as  long  as  such  a  body  as  I 
have  described  c:in  by  any  possibility  be  kept  together:  for  I 
should  think  it  the  most  dreadful  of  all  offences,  not  only 
towards  the  present  generation,  but  to  all  the  future,  if  I  were 
to  do  any  thing  which  could  make  the  minutest  breach  in  this 
-n- -it  conservatory  of  free  principles.  Those  who  perhaps  have 
me  intentions,  but  are  separated  by  some  little  political 
animosities,  will,  I  hope,  discern  at  last  how  little  conducive  it 
is  to  any  rational  purpose  to  lower  its  reputation.  For  my  part, 
Gentlemen,  from  much  experience,  from  no  little  thinking,  and 
from  Comparing  a  great  variety  of  tilings,  I  am  thoroughly  per- 
suaded that  the  last  hope  of  preserving  the  spirit  of  the  Eng- 
lish Constitution,  or  of  reuniting  the  dissipated  members  of  the 
-h  race  upon  a  common  plan  of  tranquillity  and  liberty, 
:itirely  depend  on  their  firm  and  lasting  union,  and  above 
all  on  their  keeping  themselves  from  that  despair  which  is  so 
\ery  ;ipt  to  iall  on  those  whom  a  violence  of  character  and  a 
mixture  of  ambitious  views  do  not  support  through  a  long, 
painful,  and  unsuccessful  struggle. 

There  never,  Gentlemen,  was  a  period  in  which  the  steadfast- 
ie  ni"n  has  been  put  to  so  sore  a  trial.  It  is  not  very 
diliicult  for  well-formed  minds  to  abandon  their  interest;  but 
parution  of  i'ame,  and  virtue  is  a  harsh  divorce.  Liberty 
is  in  danger  of  being  made  unpopular  to  Englishmen.  Con- 
tending for  an  imaginary  power,  we  begin  to  acquire  the  spirit 


46  BURKE. 

of  domination,  and  to  lose  the  relish  of  honest  equality.  The 
principles  of  our  forefathers  become  suspected  to  us,  because 
we  see  them  animating  the  present  opposition  of  our  children. 
The  faults  which  grow  out  of  the  luxuriance  of  freedom  appear 
much  more  shocking  to  us  than  the  base  vices  which  are  gener- 
ated from  the  rankness  of  servitude.  Accordingly  the  least  re- 
sistance to  power  appears  more  inexcusable  in  our  eyes  than  the 
greatest  abuses  of  authority.  All  dread  of  a  standing  military 
force  is  looked  upon  as  a  superstitious  panic.  All  shame  of  call- 
ing in  foreigners  and  savages  in  a  civil  contest  is  worn  off.  AVe 
grow  indifferent  to  the  consequences  inevitable  to  ourselves 
from  the  plan  of  ruling  half  the  empire  by  a  mercenary  sword. 
"We  are  taught  to  believe  that  a  desire  of  domineering  over  our 
countrymen  is  love  to  our  country,  that  those  who  hate  civil  war 
abet  rebellion,  and  that  the  amiable  and  conciliatory  virtues  of 
lenity,  moderation,  and  tenderness  to  the  privileges  of  those 
who  depend  on  this  kingdom  are  a  sort  of  treason  to  the  State. 

It  is  impossible  that  we  should  remain  long  in  a  situation 
which  breeds  such  notions  and  dispositions  without  some  great 
alteration  in  the  national  character.  Those  ingenuous  and  ieel- 
ing  minds  who  are  so  fortified  against  all  other  things,  and  so 
unarmed  to  whatever  approaches  in  the  shape  of  disgrace,  find- 
ing these  principles,  which  they  considered  a<  sure  means  of 
honour,  to  be  grown  into  disrepute,  will  retire  disheartened  and 
disgusted.  Those  of  a  more  robust  make,  the  bold,  able,  ambi- 
tious men,  who  pay  some  of  their  court  to  power  through  the 
people,  and  substitute  the  voice  of  transient  opinion  in  the  place 
of  true  glory,  will  give-in  to  the  general  mode  ;  and  those  supe- 
rior understandings  which  ought  to  correct  vulgar  prejudice 
will  confirm  and  aggravate  its  errors.  Many  things  have  been 
long  operating  towards  a  gradual  change  in  our  principles  ;  but 
this  American  war  has  done  more  in  a  very  few  years  than  all 
the  other  causes  could  have  effected  in  a  century.  It  is  there- 
fore not  on  its  own  separate  account,  but  because  of  its  attend- 
ant circumstances,  that  I  consider  its  continuance,  or  its  ending 
in  any  way  but  that  of  an  honourable  and  liberal  accommoda- 
tion, as  the  greatest  evil  which  can  befall  us.  For  that  reason 
I  have  troubled  you  with  this  long  letter.  For  that  reason  I  en- 
treat you,  again  and  again,  neither  to  be  persuaded,  shamed,  or 
frighted  out  of  the  principles  that  have  hitherto  led  so  many  of 
you  to  abhor  the  war,  its  cause,  and  its  consequences.  Let  us 
not  be  amongst  the  lirst  who  renounce  the  maxims  of  our  fore- 
fathers. I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Gentlemen, 

Your  most  obedient  and  faithful  humble  servant, 

EDMUND  BURKE. 

J5EACOXSFIELD,  April  3, 1777. 


HOW   TO   RETAIN"  THE   COLONIES.  4? 


HOW  TO  RETAIN  THE  COLONIES.2 

MY  hold  of  the  colonies  is  in  the  close  affection  which  grows 
from  common  names,  from  kindred  blood,  from  similar  privi- 
leges, and  equal  protection.  These  are  ties  which,  though  light  as 
air,  are  as  stnmg  as  links  of  iron.  Let  the  colonies  always  keep 
the  idea  of  their  civil  rights  associated  with  your  government,— 
they  will  cling  and  grapple  to  you,  and  ho  force  under  heaven 
will  be  of  power  to  tear  them  from  their  allegiance.  But  let  it 
be  once  understood  that  your  government  may  be  one  thing 
and  their  privileges  another,  that  these  two  things  may  exist 
without  any  mutual  relation, —  the  cement  is  gone,  the  cohesion 
is  loosened,  and  every  thing  hastens  to  decay  and  dissolution. 
As  long  as  you  have  the  wisdom  to  keep  the  sovereign  authority 
of  this  country  as  the  sanctuary  of  liberty,  the  sacred  temple 
consecrated  to  our  common  faith,  wherever  the  chosen  race 
and  sons  of  England  worship  freedom,  they  will  turn  their 
j;u  i  >  towards  you.  The  more  they  multiply,  the  more  friends 
you  will  have ;  the  more  ardently  they  love  liberty,  the  more 
perfect  will  be  their  obedience.  Slavery  they  can  have  any- 
where. It  is  a  weed  that  grows  in  every  soil.  They  may  have 
it  from  Spain  ;  they  may  have  it  from  Prussia.  But,  until  you 
become  lost  to  all  feeling  of  your  true  interest  and  your  natural 
dignity,  freedom  they  can  have  from  none  but  you.  This  is  the 
commodity  of  price,  of  which  you  have  the  monopoly.  This  is 
the  true  Act  of  Navigation,  which  binds  to  you  the  commerce 
of  the  colonies,  and  through  them  secures  to  you  the  wealth  of 
the  world.  Deny  them  this  participation  of  freedom,  and  you 
break  that  sole  bond  which  originally  made,  and  must  still  pre- 
sei  ve,  the  unity  of  the  empire.  Do  not  entertain  so  weak  an 
imagination  as  that  your  registers  and  your  bonds,  your  affida- 
vit s  and  your  sufferances,  your  cockets  and  your  clearances,8  are 
what  form  the  great  securities  of  your  commerce.  Do  not  dream 
that  your  letters  of  office,  and  your  instructions,  and  your  sus- 
pending clauses,  are  the  things  that  hold  together  the  great  con- 
texture of  this  mysterious  whole.  These  things  do  not  make 
your  government.  Dead  instruments,  passive  tools  as  they  are, 

2  This  piece  and  the  next  arc  from  Burke's  Speech  on  Conciliation  with  Amer- 
ii-'i.    '\  hey  arc  ?-<>  frond  in  themselves,  that  they  ought  to  have  a  place  in  this 
select  ion;  and  their  close  afiinity  with  the  preceding'  paper  is  reason  enough 

:-iing  them  here.    The  speech  from  which  they  are  taken  was  delivered 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  March  ->2,  [~">. 

3  A  clearance  is  an  official  paper  certifying  that  a  ship  has  cleared  at  the  cus- 
tom-house, that  is,  done  all  that  is  required  of  it,  and  so  is  authorized  to  sail.    A 

a  custom-house  certificate,  granted  to  merchants,  showing  that  goods 
have  been  duly  entered,  and  that  the  duties  on  them  have  been  paid. 


48  BURKE. 

it  is  the  spirit  of  the  English  communion  that  gives  all  their  life 
and  efficacy  to  them.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  English  Constitu- 
tion, which,  infused  through  the  mighty  mass,  pervades,  feeds, 
unites,  invigorates,  vivifies  every  part  of  the  empire,  even  down 
to  the  minutest  member. 

Is  it  not  the  same  virtue  which  does  every  thing  for  us  here  in 
England?  Do  you  imagine,  then,  that  it  is  the  Land-Tax  Act 
which  raises  your  revenue?  that  it  is  the  annual  vote  in  the 
Committee  of  Supply  which  gives  you  your  army?  or  that  it  is 
the  Mutiny  Bill  which  inspires  it  with  bravery  and  discipline? 
No  !  surely,  no  1  It  is  the  love  of  the  people  ;  it  is  their  attach- 
ment to  their  government,  from  the  sense  of  tho  deep  stake 
they  have  in  such  a  glorious  institution,  which  gives  you  your 
army  and  your  navy,  and  infuses  into  both  that  liberal  obedi- 
ence without  which  your  army  would  be  u  base  rabble  and  your 
navy  nothing  but  rotten  timber. 

All  this,  I  know  well  enough,  will  sound  wild  and  chimerical 
to  the  profane  herd  of  those  vulgar  and  mechanical  politicians 
who  have  no  place  among  us  ;  — a  sort  of  people  who  think  that 
nothing  exists  but  what  is  gross  and  material;  and  who  there- 
fore, far  from  being  qualified  to  be  directors  of  the  great  move- 
ment of  empire,  are  not  fit  to  turn  a  wheel  in  the  machine. 
But  to  men  truly  initiated  and  rightly  taught,  these  ruling  and 
master  principles,  which  in  the  opinion  of  such  men  as  I  have 
mentioned  have  no  substantial  existence,  are  in  truth  every 
thing,  and  all  in  all.  Magnanimity  in  politics  is  not  seldom  the 
truest  wisdom  ;  and  a  great  empire  and  little  minds  go  ill 
together.  If  we  are  conscious  of  our  situation,  and  glow  with 
zeal  to  fill  our  place  as  becomes  our  station  and  our.-ehes,  we 
ought  to  auspicate  all  our  public  proceedings  on  America  with 
the  old  warning  of  the  Church,  Sursum  cordd'.*  AVe  ought  to 
elevate  our  minds  to  the  greatness  of  that  trust  to  which  the 
order  of  Providence  has  called  us.  By  adverting  to  the  dignity 
of  this  high  calling  our  ancestors  have  turned  a  savage  wilder- 
ness into  a  glorious  empire,  and  have  made  the  most  extensive 
and  the  only  honourable  conquests,  not  by  destroying,  but  by 
promoting  the  wealth,  the  number,  the  happiness  of  the  human 
race.  Let  us  get  an  American  revenue  as  we  have  got  an  Amer- 
ican empire.  English  privileges  have  made  it  all  that  it  is ; 
English  privileges  alone  will  make  it  all  it  can  be. 

4  These  words  are  from  tho  old  Latin  Commuaion-Oflir.e  of  the  Church.  The 
English  of  them  is,  "Lift  up  your  hearts." 


THE   PEOPLE   OF   NEW   EXGLAND.  49 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  NEW  ENGLAND. 

I  PASS  to  the  colonies  in  another  point  of  view,  —  their  agri- 
culture. This  they  have  prosecuted  with  such. a  spirit,  that, 
besides  feeding  plentifully  their  own  growing;  multitude,  their 
annual  export  of  grain,  comprehending  rice,  lias  some  years  ago 
exceeded  a  million  in  value.  Of  their  last  harvest  I  am  per- 
suaded they  will  export  much  more.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
century  some  of  these  colonies  imported  corn  from  the  mother 
country.  For  some  time  past  the  Old  World  has  been  fed  from 
the  New.  The  scarcity  which  you  have  felt  would  have  been  a 
desolating  famine,  if  this  child  of  your  old  age,  with  a  true  filial 
piety,  with  a  Roman  charity,  had  not  put  the  full  breast  of  its 
youthful  exuberance  to  the  mouth  of  its  exhausted  parent. 

As  to  the  wealth  which  the  colonies  have  drawn  from  the  sea 
by  their  fisheries,  you  had  all  that  matter  fully  opened  at  your 
bar.  You  surely  thought  those  acquisitions  of  value,  for  they 
seemed  even  to  excite  your  envy ;  and  yet  the  spirit  by  which 
that  enterprising  employment  has  been  exercised  ought  rather, 
in  my  opinion,  to  have  raided  your  esteem  and  admiration.  And 
pray,  Sir,  what  in  the  world  is  equal  to  it?  Pass  by  the  other 
parts,  and  look  at  the  manner  in  which  the  people,  of  New 
England  have  of  late  carried  on  the  whalc-lishery.  Whilst  we 
follow  them  among  the  tumbling  mountains  of  ice,  and  behold 
them  penetrating  into  the  deepest  frozen  recesses  of  Hudson's 
Bay  and  Davis's  Straits,  whilst  we  are  looking  for  them  beneath 
the  arctic  circle,  we  hear  that  they  have  pierced  into  the  opposite 
region  of  polar  cold,  that  they  are  at  the  antipodes,  and  engaged 
under  the  frozen  serpent  of  the  South.  Falkland  Island,  which 
seemed  too  remote  and  romantic  an  object  for  the  grasp  of 
national  ambition,  is  but  a  Mage,  and  resting-place  in  the  prog- 
•:'  their  victorious  industry.  Nor  is  the  equinoctial  heat 
more  discouraging  to  them  than  the  accumulated  winter  of  both 
the  poles.  We  know  that,  whilst  some  of  them  draw  the  line 
and  Mrike  the  harpoon  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  others  run  the 
longitude,  and  pursue  their  gigantic  game  along  the  coast  of 
lirazil.  No  sea  but  what  is  vexed  by  their  fisheries.  No  cli- 
mate that  is  not  witness  to  their  toils.  Neither  the  persever- 
ance of  Holland,  nor  the  activity  of  France,  nor  the  dexterous 
and  firm  sagacity  of  English  enterprise,  ever  carried  this  most 
perilous  mode  of  hardy  industry  to  the  extent  to  which  it  has 
been  pushed  by  this  recent  people, — a  people  who  are  still,  as, 
it  were,  but  in  the  gristle,  and  not  yet  hardened  into  the  bone 
of  manhood.  When  I  contemplate  these  things, —  when  I  know 
that  the  colonies  in  general  owe  little  or  nothing  to  any  care  of 


50  BURKE. 

ours,  and  that  they  are  not  squeezed  into  this  happy  form  by 
the  constraints  of  watchful  and  suspicious  government,  but 
that,  through  a  wise  and  salutary  neglect,  a  generous  nature 
has  been  suffered  to  take  her  own  way  to  perfection,  —  when  I 
reflect  upon  these  effects,  when  I  see  how  profitable  they  have 
been  to  us,  I  feel  all  the  pride  of  power  sink,  and  all  presump- 
tion in  the  wisdom  of  human  contrivances  melt  and  die  away 
within  me,  —my  rigour  relents,  —I  pardon  something  to  the 
spirit  of  liberty. 


SPEECH  OX  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.5 

Mu.  SPEAKER:  I  rise,  in  acquittal  of  my  engagement  to  the 
House,  in  obedience  to  the  strong  and  just  requisition  of  my 
constituents,  and,  lam  persuaded,  in  conformity  to  the  unani- 
mous wishes  of  the  whole  nation,  to  submit  to  the  wisdom  of 
Parliament  "A  Plan  of  Reform  in  the  Constitution  of  Several 
Parts  of  the  Public  Economy." 

I  have  endeavoured  that  this  plan  should  include,  in  its  exe- 
cution, a  considerable  reduction  of  improper  expense ;  that  it 
should  effect  a  conversion  of  unprofitable  titles  into  a  produc- 
tive estate  ;  that  it  should  lead  to,  and  indeed  almost  compel,  a 
provident  administration  of  such  sums  of  public  money  as  must 
remain  under  discretionary  trusts ;  that  it  should  render  the 
incurring  of  debts  on  the  civil  establishment  (which  must  ulti- 
mately affect  national  strength  and  national  credit)  so  very  dif- 
ficult as  to  become  next  to  impracticable. 

13ut  what,  I  confess,  was  uppermost  with  me,  what  I  bent  the 
whole  force  of  my  mind  to,  was  the  reduction. of  that  corrupt 
influence  which  is  itself  the  perennial  spring  of  all  prodigality 
and  of  all  disorder, — which  loads  us  more  than  millions  of 
debt,  —  which  takes  away  vigour  from  our  arms,  wisdom  from 
our  councils,  and  every  shadow  of  authority  and  credit  from 
the  most  venerable  parts  of  our  Constitution. 

Sir,  I  assure  you  very  solemnly,  and  with  a  very  clear  con- 
science, that  nothing  in  the  world  has  led  me  to  such  an  under- 
taking but  my  zeal  for  the  honour  of  this  House,  and  the 
settled,  habitual,  systematic  affection  I  bear  to  the  cause  and 
to  the  principles  of  government. 

5  The  original  title,  in  lull,  of  this  speech  is,  "Speech  on  presenting  to  the 
House  of  Commons  (on  the  llth  of  February,  1780)  a  Plan  fur  the  better  Security 
of  the  Independence  of  Parliament,  and  the  economical  Hefornuuion  of  the  civil 
and  other  Establishments."  —  Perhaps  I  should  note  that  JJurke  uses  the  word 
economy  in  its  original  sense  of  order  or  arrangement. 


SPEECH   OX   ECOXOMICAL   REFORM.  51 

I  enter  perfectly  into  the  nature  and  consequences  of  my  at- 
tempt, and  I  advance  to  it  with  a  tremor  that  shakes  me  to  the 
inmost  fibre  of  my  frame.  I  feel  that  I  engage  in  a  business,  in 
itself  most  ungracious,  totally  wide  of  the  course  of  prudent 
conduct,  and,  I  really  think,  the  most  completely  adverse  that 
can  bo  imagined  to  the  natural  turn  and  temper  of  my  own 
mind.  I  know  that  all  parsimony  is  of  a  quality  approaching  to 
unkindness,  and  that  (on  some  person  or  other)  every  reform 
must  operate  as  a  sort  of  punishment.  Indeed,  the  whole  class 
of  the  r-evoro  and  restrictive  virtues  is  at  a  market  almost  too 
high  for  humanity.  What  is  worse,  there  are  very  few  of  those 
virtues  which  are  not  capable  of  being  imitated,  and  even  out- 
done in  many  of  their  most  striking  effects,  by  the  worst  of 
vices.  Malignity  and  envy  will  carve  much  more  deeply,  and 
finish  much  more  sharply,  in  the  work  of  retrenchment,  than 
frugality  and  providence.  I  do  not,  therefore,  wonder  that  gen- 
tlemen have  kept  a\vay  from  such  a  task,  as  well  from  good- 
nature as  from  prudence.  Private  fooling  might,  indeed,  be 
overborne  by  legislative  reason;  and  a  man  of  a  long-sighted 
and  a  strong-nerved  humanity  might  bring  himself  not  so  much 
to  consider  from  whom  he  takes  a  superfluous  enjoyment  as  for 
whom  in  the  end  he  may  preserve  the  absolute  necessaries  of 

life. 

But  it  is  much  more  easy  to  reconcile  this  measure  to  human- 
ity than  to  bring  it  to  any  agreement  with  prudence.  I  do  not 
mean  that  little,  selfish,  pitiful,  bastard  thing  which  sometimes 
goes  by  the  name  of  a  family  in  which  it  is  not  legitimate  and  to 
which  it  is  a  disgrace  ;  —  I  mean  even  that  public  and  enlarged 
prudence  which,  apprehensive  of  being  disabled  from  rendering 
acceptable  services  to  the  world,  withholds  itself  from  those 
that  are  invidious,  (ieiitlemen  who  are,  with  me,  verging 
towards  the  decline  of  life,  and  are  apt  to  form  their  ideas  of 
kings  from  kings  of  former  times,  might  dread  the  anger  of  a 
reigning  prince  ;  —  they  who  are  more  provident  of  the  future, 
<<r  by  being  ymmg  are  more  interested  in  it,  might  tremble  at 
the  ivsentmont  of  the  successor;  they  might  see  along,  dull, 
dreary,  unvaried  vista  of  despair  and  exclusion,  for  half  a  cen- 
tury, before  them.  This  is  no  pleasant  prospect  at  the  outset 
of  a  political  journey. 

JJoidi's  thi>,  Sir,  the  private  enemies  to  be  made  in  all  at- 
tempts of  this  kind  are  innumerable;  and  their  enmity  will  be 
the  more  bitter,  and  the  more  dangerous  too,  because  a  sense 
of  dignity  will  oblige  them  to  conceal  t  he  cause  of  their  resent- 
ment. Very  few  men  of  great  families  arid  extensive  connec- 
tions but  will  feel  the  smart  of  a  cutting  reform,  in  some  close 
relation,  some  bosom  friend,  some  pleasant  acquaintance,  some 


52  BURKE. 

dear,  protected  dependant.  Emolument  is  taken  from  some ; 
patronage  from  others  ;  objects  of  pursuit  from  all.  Men  forced 
into  an  involuntary  independence  will  abhor  the  authors  of  a 
blessing  which  in  their  eyes  has  so  very  near  a  resemblance  to 
a  curse.  When  officers  are  removed,  and  the  offices  remain, 
you  may  set  the  gratitude  of  some  against  the  anger  of  others, 
you  may  oppose  the  friends  you  oblige  against  the  enemies  you 
provoke.  But  services  of  the  present  sort  create  no  attach- 
ments. The  individual  good  felt  in  a  public  benefit  is  compara- 
tively so  small,  comes  round  through  such  an  involved  labyrinth 
of  intricate  and  tedious  revolutions,  whilst  a  present  personal 
detriment  is  so  heavy,  where  it  falls,  and  so  instant  in  its  oper- 
ation, that  the  cold  commendation  of  a  public  advantage  never 
was  and  never  will  be  a  match  for  the  quick  sensibility  of  a 
private  loss  ;  and  you  may  depend  upon  it.  Sir,  that,  when  many 
people  have  an  interest  in  railing,  sooner  or  later  they  will 
bring  a  considerable  degree  of  unpopularity  upon  any  measure. 
So  that,  for  the  present  at  least,  the  reformation  will  operate 
against  the  reformers  ;  and  revenge  (as  against  them  at  the  least) 
will  produce  all  the  effects  of  corruption. 

This,  Sir,  is  almost  always  the  ease,  where  the  plan  has  com- 
plete success.  But  how  stands  the  matter  in  the  mere  at- 
tempt? Nothing,  you  know,  is  more  common  than  for  men  to 
wish  and  call  loudly  too,  for  a  reformation,  who,  when  it  ar- 
rives, do  by  no  means  like  the  severity  of  its  aspect.  Jlr forma- 
tion is  one  of  those  pieces  which  must  be  put  at  some  distance 
in  order  to  please.  Its  greatest  favourers  love  it  I  tetter  in  the 
abstract  than  in  the  substance.  AVhen  any  old  pivjud: 
their  own,  or  any  interest  that  they  value,  is  touched,  they  be- 
come scrupulous,  they  become  captious  ;  and  every  man  has  his 
separate  exception.  Some  pluck  out  the  black  hairs,  some  the 
gray  ;  one  point  must  be  given  up  to  one,  another  point  must  be 
yielded  to  another:  nothing  is  suffered  to  prevail  upon  its  own 
principle;  the  whole  is  so  frittered  down  and  disjointed,  that 
scarcely  a  trace  of  the  original  scheme  remains.  Thus,  between 
the  resistance  of  power  and  the  unsysteinatical  process  of  pop- 
ularity, the  undertaker  and  the  undertaking  are  both  expose.  1, 
and  the  poor  reformer  is  hissed  off  the  stage  both  by  friends 
and  foes. 

Observe,  Sir,  that  the  apology  for  my  undertaking  (an  apol- 
ogy which,  though  long,  is  no  longer  than  necessary)  is  not 
grounded  on  my  want  of  the  fullest  sense  of  the  difficult  and 
invidious  nature  of  the  task  I  undertake.  I  risk  odium,  if  I 
succeed,  and  contempt,  if  I  fail.  My  excuse  must  rest  in  mine 
and  your  conviction  of  the  absolute,  urgent  necessity  there  is  that 
something  of  the  kind  should  be  done.  If  there  is  any  sacrifice 


SPEECH   ON"   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  53 

to  be  made,  either  of  estimation  or  of  fortune,  the  smallest  is 
the  best.  Commanders-in-chief  are  not  to  be  put  upon  the  for- 
lorn hope.  But,  indeed,  it  is  necessary  that  the  attempt  should 
be  made.  It  is  necessary  from  our  own  political  circumstances  ; 
it  is  necessary  from  t  he  operations  of  the  enemy  ;  it  is  necessary 
from  the  demands  of  the  people,  whose  desires,  when  they  do 
not  militate  with  the  stable  and  eternal  rules  of  justice  and 
reason,  (rules  which  are  above  us  and  above  them,)  ought  to  be 
as  a  law  to  a  House  of  Commons. 

As  to  our  circumstances,  I  do  not  mean  to  aggravate  the 
diliiculties  of  them  by  the  strength  of  any  colouring  whatso- 
ever. On  the  contrary,  I  observe,  and  observe  with  pleasure, 
that  our  affairs  rather  wear  a  more  promising  aspect  than  they 
did  on  the  opening  of  this  session.  We  have  had  some  leading 
successes.0  But  those  who  rate  them  at  the  highest  (higher  a 
great  deal,  indeed,  than  I  dare  to  do)  are  of  opinion  that,  upon 
the  ground  of  such  advantages,  we  cannot  at  this  time  hope  to 
make  any  treaty  of  peace  which  would  not  be  ruinous  and  com- 
pletely disgraceful.  In  such  an  anxious  state  of  things,  if 
dawnings  of  success  serve  to  animate  our  diligence,  they  are 
good  ;  if  they  tend  to  increase  our  presumption,  they  are  worse 
than  defeats.  The  state  of  our  affairs  shall,  then,  be  as  promis- 
ing as  any  one  may  choose  to  conceive  it :  it  is,  however,  but 
promising.  We  must  recollect  that,  with  but  half  of  our  natu- 
ral .strength,  we  are  at  M'ar  against  confederated  powers  who 
have  singly  threatened  us  with  ruin;  we  must  recollect  that, 
whilst  we  are  left  naked  on  one  side,  our  other  Hank  is  un- 
covered by  any  alliance;  that,  whilst  we  are  weighing  and 
balancing  our  successes  against  our  losses,  we  are  accumulating 
debt  to  the  amount  of  at  least  fourteen  millions  in  the  year. 
That  loss  is  certain. 

1  have  no  wish  to  deny  that  our  successes  are  as  brilliant  as 
any  one  chooses  to  make  them ;  our  resources,  too,  may,  for 
me,  be  as  unfathomable  as  they  are  represented.  Indeed,  they 
iust  whatever  the  people  possess  and  will  submit  to  pay. 
Taxing  is  an  easy  business.  Any  projector  can  contrive  new 
impositions ;  any  bungler  can  add  to  the  old.  But  is  it  alto- 
•M -i  her  wise  to  have  no  other  bounds  to  your  impositions  than 
the  patience  of  those  who  are  to  bear  them  V 

All  I  claim  upon  the  subject  of  your  resources  is  this,  — that 
they  arc  not  likely  to  be  increased  by  wasting  them.  I  think  I 
shall  be  permitted  to  assume  that  a  system  of  frugality  will  not 

0    The  "  successes  "  here  referred  to  were  those  gained,  in  177!),  by  the  JJritish 
troop-,  under  <  Jcncriil  l'rr\o-t,  in  <  icoi-.^ia  and  South  Carolina ;  which  were  so 
•  lei-able,  that  the  cause  of  independence  seemed  well-nigh  lost  in  those 
States. 


54  BURKE. 

lessen  your  riches,  whatever  they  may  be.  I  believe  it  will  not 
be  hotly  disputed,  that  those  resources  which  lie  heavy  on  the 
subject  ought  not  to  be  objects  of  preference, — that  they  ought 
not  to  be  the  very  first  choice,  to  an  honest  representative  of  the 
people. 

This  is  all,  Sir,  that  I  shall  say  upon  our  circumstances  and 
our  resources  :  I  mean  to  say  a  little  more  on  the  operations  of 
the  enemy,  because  this  matter  seems  to  me  very  natural  in  our 
present  deliberation.  When  I  look  to  the  other  side  of  the 
water,  I  cannot  help  recollecting  what  Pyrrhus  said,  on  recon- 
noitring the  Roman  camp:  "These  barbarians  have  nothing 
barbarous  in  their  discipline."  "When  I  look,  as  I  have  pretty 
carefully  looked,  into  the  proceedings  of  the  Trench  King,  I 
am  sorry  to  say  it,  I  see  nothing  of  the  character  and  genius  of 
arbitrary  finance,  none  of  the  bold  frauds  of  bankrupt  power, 
none  of  the  wild  struggles  and  plunges  of  despotism  in  di- 
—  no  lopping  off  from  the  capital  of  debt,  no  suspension  of 
interest,  no  robbery  under  the  name  of  loan,  no  raising  tho 
value,  no  debasing  the  substance,  of  the  coin.  I  see  neither 
Louis  the  Fourteenth  nor  Louis  the  Fifteenth.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  behold,  with  astonishment,  rising  before  me,  by  the 
very  hands  of  arbitrary  power,  and  in  the  very  midst  of  war  and 
confusion,  a  regular,  methodical  system  of  public  credit ;  I 
behold  a  fabric  laid  on  the  natural  and  solid  foundations  of 
trust  and  confidence  among  men,  and  rising,  by  fair  gradations, 
order  over  order,  according  to  the  just  rules  of  symmetry  and 
art.  What  a  reverse  of  things  !  Principle,  method,  regularity, 
economy,  frugality,  justice  to  individuals,  and  care  of  the  peo- 
ple are  the  resources  with  which  France  makes  war  upon  Great 
Britain.  God  avert  the  omen !  I3ut  if  we  should  see  any  genius 
in  war  and  politics  arise  in  France  to  second  what  is  done  in  the 
bureau! 1  turn  my  eyes  from  the  consequences. 

The  noble  lord  in  the  blue  riband,7  last  year,  treated  all  this 
with  contempt.  He  never  could  conceive  it  possible  that  the 
French  Minister  of  Finance  could  go  through  that  year  with  a 
loan  of  but  seventeen  hundred  thousand  pounds,  and  that  he 
should  be  able  to  fund  that  loan  without  any  tax.8  The  second 

7  So  Burke  commonly  designates  Lord  North,  who  was  then  Prime  Minister, 
and  who  seems  to  have  Avorn  "  the  bine  riband  "  as  a  bad  ire  of  some  high  honour 
he  had  received;  so  that  to  designate  him  thus  was  merely  an  act  of  honest 
courtesy. .  Lord  North,  though  his  long  administration  was  a  sad  failure,  was 
himself  an  able,  pleasant,  amiable  man;  and  Burke  and  he  were  personally  on 
good  terms. 

8  To  fund  a  loan  or  a  debt,  is  to  provide  and  set  apart  means,  by  special  tax 
or  otherwise,  for  regular  payment  of  the  interest  on  it.  —  M.  Necker,  at  that  time 
Minister  of  Finance  to  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  was  carrying  forward  various  deep 
and  comprehensive  changes  in  his  department,  which  seemingly  promised  a, 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  55 

year,  however,  opens  the  very  same  scene.  A  small  loan,  a 
loan  of  no  more  than  two  millions  five  hundred  thousand 
pounds,  is  to  carry  our  enemies  through  the  service  of  this  year 
also.  No  tax  is  raised  to  fund  that  debt ;  no  tax  is  raised  for 
the  current  services.  I  am  credibly  informed  that  there  is  no 
anticipation  whatsoever.  Compensations  are  correctly  made.9 
Old  debts  continue  to  be  sunk  as  in  the  time  of  profound  peace. 
Even  payments  which  their  treasury  had  been  authorized  to 
suspend  during  the  time  of  war  are  not  suspended. 

A  general  reform,  executed  through  every  department  of  the 
revenue,  creates  an  annual  income  of  more  than  half  a  million, 
whilst  it  facilitates  and  simplifies  all  the  functions  of  adminis- 
tration.1 The  King's  household  —  at  the  remotest  avenues  to 
which  all  reformation  has  been  hitherto  stopped,  that  house- 
hold which  has  been  the  stronghold  of  prodigality,  the  virgin 
fortress  which  was  never  before  attacked  —  has  been  not  only 
not  defended,  but  it  has,  even  in  the  forms,  been  surrendered 
by  the  King  to  the  economy  of  his  Minister.  No  capitulation  ; 
no  reserve.  Economy  has  entered  in  triumph  into  the  public 
splendour  of  the  monarch,  into  his  private  amusements,  into 
the  appointments  of  his  nearest  and  highest  relations.  Econ- 
omy and  public  spirit  have  made  a  beneficent  and  an  honest 
spoil:  they  liave  plundered  from  extravagance  and  luxury,  for 
the  use  of  substantial  service,  a  revenue  of  near  four  hundred 
thousand  pounds.  The  reform  of  the  finances,  joined  to  this 
reform  of  the  Court,  gives  to  the  public  nine  hundred  thousand 
pounds  a-year.  and  upwards. 

The  minister  who  does  these  things  is  a  great  man  ;  but  the 

new  era  of  credit  to  the  I'nnHi  go\ crnment;  and  ho  had  made  such  headway, 
that  lie  could  borrow,  in  the  midst,  of  war,  on  easier  trnns  than  previous  Minis- 
ter- had  obtained  in  time  of  peace.  IlurUe's  glowing  tribute  to  his  spirit  and 
hi.-  measures  wa.->  no  lest  Hiicere  than  eloquent.  But  Ncckcr's  bold  and  benefi- 
cent M-heme  soon  broke  down,  though  chiefly  by  reason  of  the  corrupt  interests 
and  .-clll.-h  prejudices  with  which  it  collided. 

!»  /  •<»iiii<-ii*fitit>H.i.  as  the  word  is  here  used,  are  equivalents  made  to  persons 
\vho-c  ollicc-  are  abolished,  or  who  in  any  May  suffer  by  new  arrangements. 

1    One  of  Net  ki'i '.-  leading  measures  was  to  concentrate  the  responsibility  of 

revenue  oflieials,  MI  as  to  come  at  an  annual  account  of  receipts  and  cxpcndi- 

wliich  had  long  been  impossible,  because  the  responsibility  was  so  widely 

•red.      And   lie  had  a  general  li.-t  of  the,  pensions  made  out;  which,  by 

iling  the  abuses  and  duplications  of  all  kinds  hidden  in  the  financial  eonfu- 

induceii  the'  King  to  authorize  a  reform,    lie  also  reduced  the  number  of 

receiver--vener;d   from    forty-eight   to   twelve,  and  of  treasurers  of  war  from 

twcnty-.-evcn  to  two,  and  made  them  all  immediately  dependent  on  the  Minister 

Bailee.      Tlie.-c  are  some  particulars  of  the  simplification  he  introduced. 

Therewithal  more  than  five  hundred  sinecure  offices,  involving  special  privileges 

with  respect  to  taxation,  were  cut  away  in  the  King's  household,  the  King  him- 

self  cheerfully  consenting  to  the  measure. 


56  BURKE. 

king  who  desires  that  they  should  be  done  is  a  far  greater.  "We 
must  do  justice  to  our  enemies:  these  are  the  acts  of  a  patriot 
king.  I  am  not  in  dread  of  the  vast  armies  of  France  ;  I  am  not 
in  dread  of  the  gallant  spirit  of  its  brave  and  numerous  nobil- 
ity ;  I  am  not  alarmed  even  at  the  great  navy  which  has  been 
so  miraculously  created.  All  these  things  Louis  the  Fourteenth 
had  before.  With  all  these  things,  the  French  monarchy  lias 
more 'than  once  fallen  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the  public  faith 
of  Great  Britain.  It  was  the  want  of  public  credit  which  dis- 
abled France  from  recovering  after  her  defeats,  or  recovering 
even  from  her  victories  and  triumphs.  It  was  a  prodigal  Court, 
it  was  an  ill-ordered  revenue,  that  sapped  the  foundations  of  all 
her  greatness.  Credit  cannot  exist  under  the  arm  of  necessity. 
Necessity  strikes  at  credit,  I  allow,  with  a  heavier  and  quicker 
blow  under  an  arbitrary  monarchy  than  under  a  limited  and 
balanced  government;  but  still  necessity  and  credit  are  natural 
enemies,  and  cannot  be  long  reconciled  in  any  sii  nation.  From 
necessity  and  corruption,  a  free  State  may  lose  the  spirit  of  that 
complex  constitution  which  is  the  foundation  of  confidence. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  am  far  from  being  sure  that  a  monarchy, 
when  once  it  is  properly  regulated,  may  not  for  a  long  time  fur- 
nish a  foundation  for  credit  upon  the  solidity  of  its  maxims, 
though  it  afford  no  ground  of  trust  in  its  institutions.  I  am 
afraid  I  see  in  England,  and  in  France,  something  like  a  begin- 
ning of  both  these  things.  I  wish  I  may  be  found  in  a  mistake. 

This  very  short  and  very  imperfect  state2  of  what  is  now  go- 
ing on  in  France  (the  last  circumstances  of  which  I  received  in 
about  eight  days  after  the  registry  of  the  edict0)  I  do  n. 
lay  before  you  for  any  invidious  purpose.  It  is  in  order  to  ex- 
cite in  us  the  spirit  of  a  noble  emulation.  Let  the  nations  make 
war  upon  each  other,  (since  we  must  make  war,)  not  with  a  low 
and  vulgar  malignity,  but  by  a  competition  of  virtues.  This 
is  the  only  way  by  which  both  parties  can  gain  by  war.  The 
French  have  imitated  us  :  let  us,  through  them,  imitate  our- 
selves, —  ourselves  in  our  better  and  happier  days.  If  public 
frugality,  under  whatever  men,  or  in  whatever  mode  of  govern- 
ment, is  national  strength,  it  is  a  strength  which  our  enemies 
are  in  possession  of  before  us. 

Sir,  I  am  well  aware  that  the  state  and  the  result  of  the 
French  economy  which  I  have  laid  before  you  are  even  now 

2  State  for  statement;  a  frequent  usage  with  Burke. 

3  This  "  edict"  was  a  decree  of  the  Council,  recorded  us  such  January  0, 17SO 
The  most  important  reform  made  thereby  was  a  change  from  the  old  sy  steal  of 
farming  out  the  customs  to  a  direct  administration  of  them  by  the  government. 
Martin  says  that  by  this  change  "  the  State  gained  on  the  spot  14,000,000  francs  .1 
year." 


SPEECH   OX  ECONOMICAL  REFOftM.  57 

lightly  treated  by  some  who  ought  never  to  speak  but  from  in- 
formation. Pains  have  not  been  spared  to  represent  them  as 
impositions  on  the  public.  Let  me  tell  you,  Sir,  that  the  crea- 
tion of  a  navy,  and  a  two  years'  war  without  taxing,  are  a  very 
singular  species  of  imposture.  But  be  it  so.  For  what  end 
\orker  carry  on  this  delusion?  Is  it  to  lower  the  estima- 
tion of  the  Crown  he  serves,  and  to  render  his  own  administra- 
tion contemptible  ?  No  1  No  !  He  is  conscious  that  the  sense 
of  mankind  is  so  clear  and  decided  in  favour  of  economy,  and  of 
the  weight  and  value  of  its  resources,  that  he  turns  himself  to 
every  species  of  fraud  and  artifice  to  obtain  the  mere  reputation 
of  it.  Men  do  not  affect  a  conduct  that  tends  to  their  discredit. 
Let  us,  then,  get  the  better  of  Monsieur  Necker  in  his  own 
way  ;  let  us  do  in  reality  what  he  does  only  in  pretence  ;  let  us 
turn  his  French  tinsel  into  English  gold.  Is,  then,  the  mere 
opinion  and  appearance  of  frugality  and  good  management  of 
such  use  to  France,  and  is  the  substance  to  be  so  mischievous  to 
England?  Is  the  very  constitution  of  Nature  so  altered  by  a 
sea,  of  twenty  miles,  that  economy  should  give  power  on  the 
Continent,  and  that  profusion  should  give  it  here?  For  God's 
sake,  let  not  this  be  the  only  fashion  of  France  which  we  refuse 
to  copy  ! 

To  the  last  kind  of  necessity,  the  desires  of  the  people,  I  have 
but  a  vrylVw  words  to  say.  The  Minister,  seem  to  contest 
this  point,  and  afi'ect  to  doubt  whether  the  people  do  really  de- 
plan  of  economy  in  the  civil  government.  Sir,  this  is  too 
ridiculous.  It  is  impossible  that  they  should  not  desire  it.  It 
is  impossible  that  a  prodigality  which  draws  its  resources  from 
their  indigence  should  be  pleasing  to  them.  Little  factions  of 
pensioners,  and  their  dependants,  may  talk  another  language. 
]Jut  the  voice  of  Nature  is  auainst  them,  and  it  will  be  heard. 
The  people  of  England  will  not,  they  cannot,  take  it  kindly, 
that  representatives  should  refuse  to  their  constituents  what  an 
absolute  ««»\v!vign  voluntarily  offers  to  his  subjects.  The  cx- 
>n  of  the  petitions  is,4  that,  "before  any  new  burdens  are 
/"/'/  i-ftftn  thin  country,  effectual  measures  be  taken  bi/  this  House  to 
I'n'/in'rc  into  and  correct  the  gross  abuses  in  the  expenditure  of  public 

This  has  been  treated  by  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  riband  as 
a  wild,  factious  language.  It  happens,  however,  that  the  people, 
in  their  address  to  us,  use,  almost  word  for  word,  the  same 
terms  as  the  King  of  France  uses  in  addressing  himself  to  his 

4  Not  long  before  the  delivery  of  this  speed),  the  House  of  Commons  hart 
been  literally  Hooded  \\iih  petitions  iVoiu  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,  calling  for 
aomo  such  reform  as  Burke  is  here  urging. 


58  BURKE. 

people  ;  and  it  differs  only  as  it  falls  short  of  the  French  King's 
idea  of  what  is  due  to  his  subjects.  "To  convince,"  says  he, 
"our  faithful  subjects  of  the  desire  we  entertain  not  to  recur  to  new 
impositions,  until  we  have  first  exhausted  all  the  resources 
which  order  and  economy  can  possibly  supply,"  &c.,  &c. 

These  desires  of  the  people  of  England,  which  come  far  short 
of  the  voluntary  concessions  of  the  King  of  France,  are  mod- 
erate indeed.  They  only  contend  that  we  should  interweave 
some  economy  with  the  taxes  with  which  we  have  chosen  to 
begin  the  war.  They  request,  not  that  you  should  rely  upon 
economy  exclusively,  but  that  you  should  give  it  rank  and  prece- 
dence, in  the  order  of  the  ways  and  means  of  this  single  session. 

But,  if  it  were  possible  that  the  desires  of  our  constituents, 
desires  which  are  at  once  so  natural  and  so  very  much  tempered 
and  subdued,  should  have  no  weight  with  an  House  of  Com- 
mons which  has  its  eye  elsewhere,  1  would  turn  my  eyes  to  the 
very  quarter  to  which  theirs  are  directed.  I  would  reason  this 
matter  with  the  House  on  the  mere  policy  of  the  question  ;  and 
I  would  undertake  to  prove  that  an  early  dereliction  of  abuse  is 
the  direct  interest  of  government, — of  government  taken  ab- 
stractedly from  its  duties,  and  considered  merely  as  a  system 
intending  its  own  conservation. 

If  there  is  any  one  eminent  criterion  which  above  all  the  rest 
distinguishes  a  wise  government  from  an  administration  weak 
and  improvident,  it  is  this,  —  "well  to  know  the  best  time  and 
manner  of  yielding  what  it  is  impossible  to  keep."  There  have 
been,  Sir,  and  there  are,  many  who  choose  to  chicane  with  their 
situation  rather  than  be  instructed  by  it.  Those  gentlemen  ar- 
gue against  every  desire  of  reformation  upon  the  principles  of  a 
criminal  prosecution.  It  is  enough  for  them  to  justify  their  ad- 
herence to  a  pernicious  system,  that  it  is  not  of  their  contriv- 
ance,—  that  it  is  an  inheritance  of  absurdity,  derived  to  them 
from  their  ancestors,  — that  they  can  make  out  a  long  and  un- 
broken pedigree  of  mismanagers  that  have  gone  before  them. 
They  are  proud  of  the  antiquity  of  their  House  ;  and  they  de- 
fend their  errors  as  if  they  were  defending  their  inheritance, 
afraid  of  derogating  from  their  nobility,  and  carefully  avoiding 
a  sort  of  blot  in  their  scutcheon,  which  they  think  would  de- 
grade them  for  ever. 

It  was  thus  that  the  unfortunate  Charles  the  First  defended 
himself  on  the  practice  of  the  Stuart  who  went  before  him,  and 
of  all  the  Tudors.  His  partisans  might  have  gone  to  the  Plan- 
tagenets.  They  might  have  found  bad  examples  enough,  both 
abroad  and  at  home,  that  could  have  shown  an  ancient  and 
illustrious  descent.  But  there  is  a  time  when  men  will  not 
suffer  bad  things  because  their  ancestors  have  suffered  worse. 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  59 

There  is  a  time  when  the  hoary  head  of  inveterate  abuse  will 
neither  draw  reverence  nor  obtain  protection.  If  the  noble  lord 
in  the  blue  riband  pleads,  Not  guilty,  to  the  charges  brought 
against  the  present  system  of  public  economy,  it  is  not  possible 
to  give  a  fair  verdict  by  which  he  will  not  stand  acquitted.  But 
pleading  is  not  our  present  business.  His  plea  or  his  traverse 
may  bo  allowed  as  an  answer  to  a  charge,  when  a  charge  is  made. 
But  if  he  puts  himself  in  the  way  to  obstruct  reformation,  then 
the  faults  of  his  office  instantly  become  his  own.  Instead  of  a 
public  officer  in  an  abusive  department,  whose  province  is  an 
object  to  be  regulated,  he  becomes  a  criminal  who  is  to  be 
punished.  I  do  most  seriously  put  it  to  administration  to  con- 
sider the  wisdom  of  a  timely  reform.  Early  reformations  are 
amicable  arrangements  with  a  friend  in  power ;  late  reforma- 
tions are  terms  imposed  upon  a  conquered  enemy  :  early  refor- 
mations are  made  in  cool  blood ;  late  reformations  are  made 
under  a  state  of  inflammation.  In  that  state  of  things  the  peo- 
ple behold  in  government  nothing  that  is  respectable.  They  see 
the  abuse,  and  they  will  see  nothing  else.  They  fall  into  the 
temper  of  a  furious  populace  provoked  at  the  disorder  of  a 
house  of  ill-fame;  they  never  attempt  to  corrector  regulate; 
they  go  to  work  by  the  shortest  way  :  they  abate  the  nuisance, 
they  pull  down  the  house. 

This  is  my  opinion  with  regard  to  the  true  interest  of  govern- 
ment. 15ut  as  it  is  the  interest  of  government  that  reformation 
should  be  parly,  it  is  the  interest  of  the  people  that  it  should  bo 
temperate.  It  is  their  interest,  because  a  temperate  reform  is 
permanent,  and  because  it  has  a  principle  of  growth.  When- 
ever wo  improve,  it  is  right  to  leave  room  for  a  further  im- 
provement. It  is  right  to  consider,  to  look  about  us,  to  examine 
the  effect  of  what  we  have  done.  Then  we  can  proceed  with 
confidence,  because  we  can  proceed  with  intelligence.  Whereas 
in  hot  reformations,  in  what  men  more  zealous  than  considerate 
call  making  clear  work,  t  he  whole  is  generally  so  crude,  so  harsh, 
so  indi'-^'sted,  mixed  with  so  much  imprudence  and  so  much 
injustice,  so  contrary  to  the  whole  course  of  human  nature  and 
h'iman  institutions,  that  the  very  people  who  are  most  eager 
for  it  are  among  the  first  to  grow  disgusted  at  what  they  have 
done.  Then  some  part  of  the  abdicated  grievance  is  recalled 
fmni  its  exile  in  order  to  become  a  corrective  of  the  correction. 
Then  the  abuse  assumes  all  the  credit  and  popularity  of  a 
reform.  Tin-  very  idea  of  purity  and  disinterestedness  in 
politics  falls  into  disrepute,  and  is  considered  as  a  vision  of  hot 
and  inexperienced  men  ;  and  thus  disorders  become  incurable, 
the  virulence  of  their  own  quality,  but  by  the  unapt  and 
violent  nature  of  the  remedies.  A  great  part,  therefore,  of  my 


60  BURKE. 

idea  of  reform  is  meant  to  operate  gradually :  some  benefits 
will  come  at  a  nearer,  some  at  a  more  remote  period.  We  must 
no  more  make  haste  to  be  rich  by  parsimony  than  by  intemper- 
ate acquisition. 

In  my  opinion,  it  is  our  duty,  when  we  have  the  desires  of 
the  people  before  us,  to  pursue  them,  not  in  the  spirit  of  literal 
obedience,  which  may  militate  with  their  very  principle, — much 
less  to  treat  them  with  a  peevish  and  contentious  litigation, 
as  if  we  were  adverse  parties  in  a  suit.  It  would,  Sir,  be  most 
dishonourable  for  a  faithful  representative  of  the  Commons  to 
take  advantage  of  any  inartificial  expression  of  the  people's 
wishes,  in  order  to  frustrate  their  attainment  of  what  they 
have  an  undoubted  right  to  expect.  We  are  under  infinite 
obligations  to  our  constituents,  who  have  raised  us  to  so  dis- 
tinguished a  trust,  and  have  imparted  such  a  degree  of  sanctity 
to  common  characters.  We  ought  to  walk  before  them  with 
purity,  plainness,  and  integrity  of  heart,— with  filial  love,  and 
not  with  slavish  fear,  which  is  always  a  low  and  tricking  thing. 
For  my  own  part,  in  what  I  have  meditated  upon  that  subject, 
I  cannot,  indeed,  take  upon  me  to  say  I  have  the  honour  to 
follow  the  sense  of  the  people.  The  truth  is,  I  met  it  on  the  way, 
while  I  was  pursuing  their  interest  according  to  my  own  ideas. 
lam  happy  beyond  expression  to  find  that  my  intentions  have 
so  far  coincided  with  theirs,  that  I  have  not  had  cause  to  be  in 
the  least  scrupulous  to  sign  their  petition,  conceiving  it  to 
express  my  own  opinions,  as  nearly  as  general  terms  can  ex- 
press the  object  of  particular  arrangements. 

I  am  therefore  satisfied  to  act  as  a  fair  mediator  between 
government  and  the  people,  endeavouring  to  form  a  plan  which 
should  have  both  an  early  and  a  temperate  operation.  I  mean, 
that  it  should  be  systematic,  that  it  should  rather  strike  at  the 
first  cause  of  prodigality  and  corrupt  influence  than  attempt  to 
follow  them  in  all  their  effects. 

It  was  to  fulfil  the  first  of  these  objects  (the  proposal  of  some- 
thing substantial)  that  I  found  myself  obliged,  at  the  outset,  to 
reject  a  plan  proposed  by  an  honourable  and  attentive  member 
of  Parliament,  with  very  good  intentions  on  his  part,  about  a 
year  or  two  ago.  Sir,  the  plan  I  speak  of  was  the  tax  of  twenty- 
five  per  cent  moved  upon  places  and  pensions  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  American  war.  Nothing,  Sir,  could  have  met 
my  ideas  more  than  such  a  tax,  if  it  was  considered  as  a  practi- 
cal satire  on  that  war,  and  as  a  penalty  upon  those  who  led  us 
into  it ;  but  in  any  other  view  it  appeared  to  me  very  liable  to 
objections.  I  considered  the  scheme  as  neither  substantial, 
nor  permanent,  nor  systematical,  nor  likely  to  be  a  correct 
of  evil  influence.  I  have  always  thought  employments  a  very 


SPEECH   ON   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  61 

proper  subject  of  regulation,  but  a  very  ill-chosen  subject  for 
a  tax.  An  equal  tax  upon  property  is  reasonable  ;  because  the 
object  is  of  the  same  quality  throughout.  The  species  is  tho 
same  ;  it  differs  only  in  its  quantity.  But  a  tax  upon  salaries 
is  totally  of  a  different  nature;  there  can  be  no  equality,  and 
consequently  no  justice,  in  taxing  them  by  the  hundred  in  the 

We  have,  Sir,  on  our  establishment  several  offices  which 
perform  real  service  :  wo  have  also  places  that  provide  large 
rewards  for  no  service  at  all.  We  have  stations  which  are 
made  for  the  public  decorum,  made  for  preserving  the  grace 
and  majesty  of  a  great  people  :  we  have  likewise  expensive 
formalities,  which  tend  rather  to  the  disgrace  than  the  orna- 
ment of  the  State  and  the  Court.  This,  Sir,  is  the  real  condi- 
tion of  our  establishments.  To  fall  with  the  same  severity  on 
objects  so  perfectly  dissimilar  is  the  very  reverse  of  a  reforma- 
tion,—1  mean  a  reformation  framed,  as  all  serious  things  ought 
ti>  be,  in  number,  weight,  and  measure.— Suppose,  for  instance, 
that  two  men  receive  a  salary  of  £800  a-year  each.  In  the  office 
of  one  there  is  nothing  at  all  to  be  done;  in  the  other,  the 
occupier  is  oppn->sed  by  its  duties.  Strike  off  twenty-live  per 
cent  from  these  two  offices,  you  take  from  one  man  i'l'OO  which 
in  justice  he  ought  to  have,  and  you  give  in  effect  to  the  other 
£  GOO  which  he  ought  not  to  receive.  The  public  robs  the  for- 
mer, and  the  latter  robs  the  public;  and  this  mode  of  mutual 
robbery  is  the  only  way  in  which  the  ollice  and  the  public  can 
make  up  their  accounts. 

lUit  the  balance,  in  settling  the  account  of  this  double  injus- 
tice, is  nr.ich  against  the  State.  The  result  is  short.  You  pur- 
chase a  saving  of  two  hundred  pounds  by  a  profusion  of  six. 
Beside*,  Sir,  whilst  you  leave  a  supply  of  unsecured  money 
behind,  wholly  at  the  discretion  of  Ministers,  they  make  up  the 
tax  to  Midi  places  as  they  wish  to  favour,  or  in  such  new  places 
they  may  choose  to  create.  Thus  the  civil  list  becomes 
oppressed  with  debt;  and  the  public  is  obliged  to  repay,  and  to 
repay  with  an  heavy  interest,  what  it  ha*  taken  by  an  injudi- 
cious tax.  Such  has  been  <  he  effect  of  the  taxes  hitherto  laid 
on  pensions  and  employments,  and  it  is  no  encouragement  to 
r«-cur  again  to  1  he  same  expedient. 

In  i -fleet,  such  a  scheme  is  not  calculated  to  produce,  but 
-event  reformation.  It  holds  out  a  shadow  of  present  gain 
to  u  greedy  and  necessitous  public,  to  divert  their  attention 
from  those  ubu.-es  which  in  reality  are  the  great  causes  of 
their  wants.  It  is  a  composition  to  stay  inquiry;  it  is  a  fmo 
paid  by  mismanagement  for  the  renewal  of  its  lease;  what 
is  worse,  it  is  a  fine  paid  by  industry  and  merit  for  an  in- 


62  BUttKE. 

demnity  to  the  idle  and  the  worthless.  But  I  shall  say  no 
more  upon  this  topic,  because  (whatever  may  be  given  out  to 
the  contrary)  I  know  that  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  riband 
perfectly  agrees  with  me  in  these  sentiments. 

After  all  that  I  have  said  on  this  subject,  I  am  so  sensible 
that  it  is  our  duty  to  try  every  thing  which  may  contribute  to 
the  relief  of  the  nation,  that  I  do  not  attempt  wholly  to  repro- 
bate the  idea  even  of  a  tax.  Whenever,  Sir,  the  incumbrance 
of  useless  office  (which  lies  no  less  a  dead  weight  upon  the 
service  of  the  State  than  upon  its  revenues)  shall  be  removed, 
—  when  the  remaining  offices  shall  be  classed  according  to  the 
just  proportion  of  their  rewards  and  services,  so  as  to  admit 
the  application  of  an  equal  rule  to  their  taxation,—  when  the 
discretionary  power  over  the  civil-list  cash  shall  be  so  regulated 
that  a  minister  shall  no  longer  have  the  means  of  repaying  with 
a  private  what  is  taken  by  a  public  hand, —  if,  after  all  those 
preliminary  regulations,  it  should  be  thought  that  a  tax  on 
places  is  an  object  worthy  of  the  public  attention,  I  shall  be 
very  ready  to  lend  my  hand  to  a  reduction  of  their  emoluments. 

Having  thus,  Sir,  not  so  much  absolutely  rejected  as  post- 
poned the  plan  of  a  taxation  of  office,  my  next  business  was  to 
find  something  which  might  be  really  substantial  and  effectual. 
I  am  quite  clear  that,  if  we  do  not  go  to  the  very  origin  and  first 
ruling  cause  of  grievances,  we  do  nothing.  What  does  it  signify 
to  turn  abuses  out  of  one  door,  if  we  are  to  let  them  in  at  an- 
other? What  does  it  signify  to  promote  economy  upon  a  meas- 
ure, and  to  suffer  it  to  be  subverted  in  the  principle?  Our 
Ministers  are  far  from  being  wholly  to  blame  for  the  present  ill 
order  which  prevails.  Whilst  institutions  directly  repugnant  to 
good  management  are  suffered  to  remain,  no  effectual  or  lasting 
reform  can  be  introduced. 

I  therefore  thought  it  necessary,  as  goon  as  I  conceived 
thoughts  of  submitting  to  you  some  plan  of  reform,  to  take  a 
comprehensive  view  of  the  state  of  this  country, — to  make  a 
sort  of  survey  of  its  jurisdictions,  its  estates,  and  its  establish- 
ments. Something  in  every  one  of  them  seemed  to  me  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  all  economy  in  their  administration,  and  prevent- 
ed  every  possibility  of  methodizing  the  system.  But  bcin.u,  as 
I  ought  to  be,  doubtful  of  myself,  I  was  resolved  not  to  pr 
in  an  arbitrary  manner  in  any  particular  which  tended  to  change 
the  settled  state  of  things,  or  in  any  degree  to  affect  the  fortune 
or  situation,  the  interest  or  the  importance,  of  any  individual. 
.By  an  arbitrary  proceeding  I  mean  one  conducted  by  the  pri- 
vate opinions,  tastes,  or  feelings  of  the  man  who  attempts  to 
regulate.  These  private  measures  are  not  standards  of  the  ex- 
chequer, nor  balances  of  the  sanctuary.  General  principles 


SPEECH   0^   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  63 

cannot  be  debauched  or  corrupted  by  interest  or  caprice  ;  and 
by  those  principles  I  was  resolved  to  work. 

Sir,  before  I  proceed  further,  I  will  lay  these  principles  fairly 
before  you,  that  afterwards  you  may  be  in  a  condition  to  judge 
whether  every  object  of  regulation,  as  I  propose  it,  conies  fairly 
under  its  rule.  This  will  exceedingly  shorten  all  discussion  be- 
tween us,  if  we  are  perfectly  in  earnest  in  establishing  a  system 
of  good  management.  I  therefore  lay  down  to  myself  seven 
fundamental  rules:  they  might,  indeed,  be  reduced  to  two  or 
three  simple  maxims  ;  but  they  would  be  too  general,  and  their 
application  to  the  several  heads  of  the  business  before  us  would 
not  be  so  distinct  and  visible.  I  conceive,  then, 

First,  That  all  jurisdictions  which. furnish  more  matter  of  ex- 
pense, more  temptation  to  oppression,  or  more  means  and 
instruments  of  corrupt  influence,  than  advantage  to 'justice  or 
political  administration,  ought  to  be  abolished. 

Secondly,  That  all  public  estates  which  are  more  subservient 
to  the  purposes  of  vexing,  overawing,  and  influencing  those 
who  hold  under  them,  and  to  the  expense  of  perception5  and 
management,  than  of  benefit  to  the  revenue,  ought,  upon 
every  principle  both  of  revenue  and  of  freedom,  to 'be  dis- 
posed of. 

7V///V////,  That  all  offices  which  bring  more  charge  than  pro- 
portional advantage  to  the  State,  that  all  offices  which  may  be 
engrafted  on  others,  uniting  and  simplifying  their  duties,  ought, 
in  the  first  case,  to  be  taken  away,  and,  in  the  second,  to  be 
consolidated. 

Fimrthlii,  That  all  such  offices  ought  to  be  abolished  as  ob- 
struct the  prospect  of  the  general  superintendent  of  finance, 
which  destroy  his  superintendency,  which  disable  him  from 
foreseeing  and  providing  for  charges  as  they  may  occur,  from 
preventing  expense  in  its  origin,  checking  it  in  its  progress,  or 
s, •curing  its  application  to  its  proper  purposes.  A  minister  un- 
der whom  expenses  can  be  made  without  his  knowledge,  can 
never  .say  what  it  is  that  he  can  spend,  or  what  it  is  that  he  can 

Fifthly,  That  it  is  proper  tp  establish  an  invariable  order  in 
all  payments,  which  will  prevent  partiality  which  will  give  pref- 
eivii'  v  to  son  ices,  not  according  to  the  importunity  of  the  de- 
mandant, but  the  rank  and  order  of  their  utility  or  their  justice. 

,>/.///(///,  That  it  is  right  to  reduce  every  establishment  and 
every  part  of  an  establishment  (as  nearly  as  possible)  to  cer- 
tainty, tho  lilo  of  all  order  and  good  management. 

Seventhly,  That  all  subordinate  treasuries,  as  the  nurseries  of 

5    Perception  is  here  used  in  its  Latin  sense  of  gathering  or  collecting. 


64  BURKE. 

mismanagement,  and  as  naturally  drawing  to  themselves  as 
much  money  as  they  can,  keeping  it  as  long  as  they  can,  and 
accounting  for  it  as  late  as  they  can,  ought  to  be  dissolved. 
They  have  a  tendency  to  perplex  and  distract  the  public  ac- 
counts, and  to  excite  a  suspicion  of  government  even  beyond 
the  extent  of  their  abuse. 

Under  the  authority  and  with  the  guidance  of  these  princi- 
ples I  proceed, —  wishing  that  nothing  in  any  establishment 
may  be  changed,  where  I  am  not  able  to  make  a  strong,  direct, 
and  solid  application  of  these  principles,  or  of  some  one  of 
them.  An  economical  constitution  is  a  necessary  basis  for  an 
economical  administration. 

First,  with  regard  to  the  sovereign  jurisdictions,  I  must  ob- 
serve, Sir,  that  whoever  ta,kes  a  view  of  this  kingdom  in  a  cur- 
sory manner  will  imagine  that  he  beholds  a  solid,  compacted, 
uniform  system  of  monarchy,  in  which  all  inferior  jurisdictions 
arc  but  as  rays  diverging  from  one  centre.  13ut,  on  examining 
it  more  nearly,  you  ihul  much  eccentricity  and  confusion.  It  is 
not  a  monarch)/  in  strictness.  But,  as  in  the  Saxon  tim« 
country  was  an  heptarchy,  it  is  now  a  strange  sort  of  )n  ///'//•<•////. 
It  is  divided  into  live  several  distinct  principalities,  besi<l< 
supreme.  There  is,  indeed,  this  difference  from  the  Saxon 
times, —that,  as  in  the  itinerant  exhibitions  of  the 
want  of  a  complete  company,  they  are  obliged  to  throw  a  vari- 
ety of  parts  on  their  chief  performer,  so  our  sovereign  conde- 
scends himself  to  act  not  only  the  principal,  but  all  the  subor- 
dinate parts  in  the  play.  He  condescends  to  dissipate  the  royal 
character,  and  to  trille  with  those  light,  subordinate,  lacquered0 
sceptres  in  those  hands  that  sustain  the  ball  representing  the 
world,  or  which  wield  the  trident  that  commands  the  ocean. 
Cross  a  brook,  and  you  lose  the  King  of  England  ;  but  you  have 
some  comfort  in  coming  again  under  his  Majesty,  though 
"shorn  of  his  beams,"  and  no  more  than  Prince  of  Wales.  Go 
to  the  north,  and  you  find  him  dwindled  to  a  Duke  of  Lancas- 
ter ;  turn  to  the  west  of  that  north,  and  he  pops  upon  you  in 
the  humble  character  of  Earl  of  Chester.  Travel  a  few  miles 
on,  the  Earl  of  Chester  disappears,  and  the  King  surprises  you 
again  as  Count  Palatine  of  Lancaster.  If  you  travel  beyond 
Mount  Edgecombe,  you  find  him  once  more  in  his  incognito, 
and  he  is  Duke  of  Cornwall.  So  that,  quite  fatigued  and  sati- 
ated with  this  dull  variety,  you  are  infinitely  refreshed  when 
you  return  to  the  sphere  of  his  proper  splendour,  and  behold 
your  amiable  sovereign  in  his  true,  simple,  undisguised,  native 
character  of  Majesty. 

6    That  is,  varnished;  lacquer  being  a  sort  of  yellowish  varnish. 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL  REFORM:.  '  65 

In  every  one  of  these  five  principalities,  duchies,  palatinates, 
there  is  a  regular  establishment  of  considerable  expense  and 
most  domineering  influence.  As  his  [Majesty  submits  to  appear 
in  this  state  of  subordination  to  himself,  his  loyal  peers  and 
faithful  commons  attend  his  royal  transformations,  and  are  not 
so  nice  as  to  refuse  to  nibble  at  those  crumbs  of  emoluments 
which  console  their  petty  metamorphoses.  Thus  every  one  of 
those  principalities  has  the  apparatus  of  a  kingdom  for  the  juris- 
diction over  a  few  private  estates,  and  the  formality  and  charge 
of  the  Exchequer  of  Great  Britain  for  collecting  the  rents  of  a 
country  squire.  Cornwall  is  the  bc-t  of  them;  but  when  you 
compare  the  charge  with  the  receipt,  you  will  find  that  it  fur- 
nishes no  exception  to  the  general  rule.  The  Duchy  and 
County  Palatine  of  Lancaster  do  not  yield,  as  I  have  reason  to 
believe,  on  an  average  of  twenty  years,  four  thousand  pounds 
a-year  clear  to  the  crown.  As  to  Wales,  and  the  County  Pala- 
tine of  Chester,  I  have  my  doubts  whether  their  productive 
exchequer  yields  any  returns  at  all.  Yet  one  may  say,  that 
this  revenue  is  more  faithfully  applied  to  its  purposes  than  any 
of  the  rest;  as  it  exists  for  the  sole  purpose  of  multiplying 
offices  and  extending  influence. 

An  attempt  was  lately  made  to  improve  this  branch  of  local 

influence,  and  to  transfer  it  to  the  fund  of  general  corruption. 

I  have  on  the  seat  behind  me  the  constitution  of  Mr.  John  Pro- 

bcrt,   a  knight-errant  dubbed  by  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue 

riband,  and  sent  to  search  for  revenues  and  adventures  upon 

the  mountains  of  Wales.    The  commission  is  remarkable,  and 

the  event  not  loss  so.    The  commission  sets  forth  that,  "upon 

a  report  of  the  deputy-auditor  "  (far  there  is  a  deputy-auditor) 

"of  the  Principality  of  Wales,  it  appeared  that  his  Majesty's 

land  revenues  in  the  said  principality  are  greatly  diminished"; — 

and  "that,  upon  a  report  of  the  surveyor-general  of  his  Majesty's 

land  revenues,  upon  a  memorial  of  the  auditor  of  his  Majesty's 

revenues,  within   the  mid  principality,   his  mines  and  forests 

have  produced  very  little  profit  cither  to  the  public  revenue  or  to 

/.>•;"  —  and  therefore  they  appoint  Mr.  Probert,  with  a 

-ion  of  three  hundred  pounds  a-year  from  the  .said  princi-* 

pa  lit y,  to  try  whether  he  can  make  any  thing  more  of  that  very 

liltk  which  is  stated  to  be  so  greatly  diminished.     "A  beggarly 

,<///  boxes!"    And  yet,  Sir,  you  will  remark,  that 

diminution  from  littleness  (which  serves  only  to  prove  tho 

infinite  divisibility  of  matter)  was  not  for  want  of  the  tender 

'•ms  care  (as  wo  see)  of  surveyors-general  and  surveyors- 

icular,  of  auditors  and  deputy-auditors, —  not  for  want  of 

memorials,  and  remonstrances,  and  reports,  and  commissions, 

and  constitutions,  and  inquisitions,  and  pensions. 


66  BURKE. 

Probert,  thus  armed,  and  accoutred,  — and  paid,— proceeded 
on  his  adventure  ;  but  he  was  no  sooner  arrived  on  the  confines 
of  Wales  than  all  Wales  was  in  arms  to  meet  him.  That  nation 
is  brave  and  full  of  spirit.  Since  the  invasion  of  King  Edward, 
and  the  massacre  of  the  bards,  there  never  was  such  a  tumult 
and  alarm  and  uproar  through  the  region  of  Prestatyn.  Snow- 
don  shook  to  its  base  ;  Cader-Idris  was  loosened  from  its  foun- 
dations. The  fury  of  litigious  war  blew  her  horn  on  the  moun- 
tains. The  rocks  poured  down  their  goatherds,  and  the  deep 
caverns  vomited  out  their  miners.  Every  thing  above  ground 
and  every  thing  under  ground  was  in  arms. 

In  short,  Sir,  to  alight  from  my  Welsh  Pegasus,  and  to  come 
to  level  ground,  the  Preux  Chevalier  Probert  went  to  look  for 
revenue,  like  his  masters  upon  other  occasions,  and,  like  his 
masters,  he  found  rebellion.  But  we  were  grown  cautious  by 
experience.  A  civil  war  of  paper  might  end  in  a  more  serious 
war;  for  now  remonstrance  met  remonstrance,  and  memorial 
was  opposed  to  memorial.  The  wise  Britons  thought  it  more 
reasonable  that  the  poor,  wasted,  decrepit  revenue  of  the 
principality  should  die  a  natural  than  a  violent  death.  In 
truth,  Sir,  the  attempt  was  no  less  an  affront  upon  the  under- 
standing of  that  respectable  people  than  it  was  an  attack  on 
their  property.  They  chose  rather  that  their  ancient,  moss- 
grown  castles  should  moulder  into  decay,  under  the  silent 
touches  of  time,  and  the  slow  formality  of  an  oblivious  and 
drowsy  exchequer,  than  that  they  should  be  butiered  down  all 
at  once  by  the  lively  ciTorts  of  a  pensioned  engineer.  As  it  is 
the  fortune  of  the  noble  lord  to  whom  the  a  umpires  of  this 
campaign  belonged  frequently  to  provoke  resistance,  so  it  is  his 
rule  and  nature  to  yield  to  that  resistance  on  till  eases  what- 
soever. IIo  was  true  to  himself  on  this  occasion.  He  submitted 
with  spirit  to  the  spirited  remonstrances  of  the  Wel.-li.  Mr. 
Probert  gave  up  his  adventure,  and  keeps  his  pension;  and  so 
ends  the  famous  history  of  the  revenue  adventures  of  the  bold 
Baron  North  and  the  good  Knight  Probert  upon  the  mountains 
of  Yenodotia. 

»  In  such  a  state  is  the  exchequer  of  Wales  at  present,  that, 
upon  the  report  of  the  Treasury  itself,  its  little  revenue  is 
greatly  diminished ;  and  we  see,  by  the  whole  of  this  strange 
transaction,  that  an  attempt  to  improve  it  produces  resistance. 
the  resistance  produces  submission,  and  the  whole  ends  in 
pension.7 

7  Here  Lord  North  shook  his  head,  and  told  those  who  sat  near  him  that  Mr. 
rrobert's  pension  was  to  depend  on  his  success.  It  may  be  so.  Mr.  Probcrt'a 
pension  was,  however,  uo  essential  part  of  the  question;  nor  tiki  Mr.  Burke  care 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  67 

It  is  nearly  the  same  with  the  revenues  of  the  Duchy  of 
Lancaster.  To  do  nothing  with  them  is  extinction  ;  to  improve 
them  is  oppression.  Indeed,  the  whole  of  the  estates  which 
support  these  minor  principalities  is  made  up,  not  of  revenues 
and  rents  and  profitable  fines,  but  of  claims,  of  pretensions,  of 
vexations,  of  litigations.  They  are  exchequers  of  unfrequent 
receipt  and  constant  charge  ;  a  system  of  finances  not  fit  for  an 
economist  who  would  be  rich,  not  fit  for  a  prince  who  would 
govern  his  subjects  with  equity  and  justice.  ' 

It  is  not  only  between  prince  and  subject  that  these  mock 
jurisdictions  and  mimic  revenues  produce  great  mischief.  They 
excite  among  the  people  a  spirit  of  informing  and  delating,  a 
spirit  of  supplanting  and  undermining  one  another  :  so  that 
many,  in  such  circumstances,  conceive  it  advantageous  to  them 
rather  to  continue  subject  to  vexation  themselves  than  to  give 
up  the  means  and  chance  of  vexing  others.  It  is  exceedingly 
common  for  men  to  contract  their  love  to  their  country  into  an 
attachment  toils  petty  subdivisions  ;  and  they  sometimes  even 
cling  to  th"ir  provincial  abuses,  as  if  they  were  franchises  and 
local  privileges.  Accordingly,  in  places  where  there  is  much 
of  this  kind  of  estate,  persons  will  be  always  found  who  would 
rather  trust  to  their  talents  in  recommending  themselves  to 
power  for  the  renewal  of  their  interests,  than  to  encumber 
their  purses,  though  never  so  lightly,  in  order  to  transmit 
independence  to  their  posterity.  It  is  a  great  mistake,  that  the 
desire  of  securing  property  is  universal  among  mankind.  Gam- 
ing is  a  principle  inherent  in  human  nature.  It  belongs  to  us 
all.  I  would  therefore  break  those  tables ;  I  would  furnish  no 
evil  occupation  for  that  spirit.  I  would  make  every  man  look 
everywhere,  except  to  the  intrigue  of  a  Court,  for  the  improve- 
ment, of  his  circumstances  or  the  security  of  his  fortune.  I 
have  in  my  eye  a  very  strong  case  in  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster 
(which  lately  occupied  Westminster  Hall  and  the  House  of 
Lords)  as  my  voucher  for  many  of  these  reflections. 

For  what  plausible  reason  are  these  principalities  suffered  to 
exist?  When  a  government  is  rendered  complex,  (which  in 
itself  is  no  di-sirablc  thing,)  it  ought  to  be  for  some  political  end 
which  cannot  be  answered  otherwise.  Subdivisions  in  govern-. 
ment  are  only  admissible  in  favour  of  the  dignity  of  inferior 
princes  and  high  nobility,  or  for  the  support  of  an  aristocratic 
confederacy  under  some  head,  or  for  the  conservation  of  the 
franchises  of  the  people  in  some  privileged  province.  For  the 

whether  he  still  possessed  it  or  not.  His  point  was,  to  show  the  ridicule  of 
jitti-mpting  an  improvement  of  the  Welsh  revenue  under  its  present  establish- 
ment.— Author's  Note. 


C8  BURKE. 

two  former  of  these  ends,  such  are  the  subdivisions  in  favour  of 
the  electoral  and  other  princes  in  the  Empire ;  for  the  latter 
of  these  purposes  are  the  jurisdictions  of  the  Imperial  cities 
and  the  Ilanse  towns.  For  the  latter  of  these  ends  are  also  the 
countries  of  the  States  (Pays  d'  Etats)  and  certain  cities  and 
orders  in  France.  These  are  all  regulations  with  an  objec^ 
and  some  of  them  with  a  very  good  object.  But  how  are  the 
principles  of  any  of  these  subdivisions  applicable  in  the  case 
before  us  ? 

Do  they  answer  any  purpose  to  the  King?  The  Principality 
of  Wales  was  given  by  patent  to  Edward  the  Black  Prince  on 
the  ground  on  which  it  has  since  stood.  Lord  Coke  sagaciously 
observes  upon  it,  "That  in  the  charter  of  creating  the  Black 
Prince  Edward  Prince  of  Wales  there  is  a  great  mystery:  for 
less  than  an  estate  of  inheritance  so  great  a  prince  could  not 
have,  and  an  absolute  estate  of  inheritance  in  so  great  a  principality 
as  Wales  (this  principality  being  so  dear  to  him)  he  should  not 
have;  and  therefore  it  was  made  sibi  ct  heredibus  suit  r<  gibus 
Anylice,6  that  by  his  decease,  or  attaining  to  the  crown,  it  might 
be  extinguished  in  the  crown." 

For  the  sake  of  this  foolish  mystery,  of  what  a  great  prince 
could  not  have  less,  and  sJiould  not  have  so  much,  of  a  princi- 
pality which  was  too  dear  to  be  given,  and  too  great  to  be  kept, 
—  and  for  no  other  cause  that  ever  I  could  find, — this  form  and 
shadow  of  a  principality,  without  any  substance,  has  been 
maintained.  That  you  may  judge  in  this  instance  (and  it  serves 
for  the  r^st)  of  the  difference  between  a  great  and  a  little  econ- 
omy, you  will  please  to  recollect,  Sir,  that  Wales  may  be  about 
the  tenth  part  of  England  in  size  and  population,  and  certainly 
not  a  hundredth  part  in  opulence.  Twelve  judges  perform  the 
whole  of  the  business,  both  of  the  stationary  and  the  itinerant 
justice  of  this  kingdom;  but  for  Wales  there  are  eight  judges. 
There  is  in  Wales  an  exchequer,  as  well  as  in  all  the  duchies, 
according  to  the  very  best  and  most  authentic  absurdity  of 
form.  There  are  in  all  of  them  a  hundred  more  difficult  trilles 
and  laborious  fooleries,  which  serve  no  other  purpose  than  to 
keep  alive  corrupt  hope  and  servile  dependence. 

These  principalities  are  so  far  from  contributing  to  the  ease 
of  the  King,  to  his  wealth  or  his  dignity,  that  they  render  both 
his  supreme  and  his  subordinate  authority  perfectly  ridiculous. 
It  was  but  the  other  day,  that  that  pert,  factious  fellow,  the 
Duke  of  Lancaster,  presumed  to  fly  in  the  face  of  his  lie.^e 
lord,  our  gracious  sovereign,  and,  associating  with  a  parcel  of 
lawyers  as  factious  as  himself,  to  the  destruction  of  all  law  and 

S    That  is,  "  to  himself  and  his  heirs  as  Kings  of  England." 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  69 

order,  and  in  committees  leading  directly  to  rebellion,  presumed  to 
go  to  law  with  the  King.  The  object  is  neither  your  business 
nor  mine.  "\Vhich  of  the  parties  got  the  better  I  really  forget. 
I  think  it  was  (as  it  ought  to  be)  the  King.  The  material  point 
is,  that  the  suit  cost  about  fifteen  thousand  pounds.  But,  as 
the  Duke  of  Lancaster  is  but  a  sort  of  Duke  Humphrey,*  and 
not  worth  a  groat,  our  sovereign  was  obliged  to  pay  the  costs  of 
both.  Indeed,  this  art  of  converting  a  great  monarch  into  a 
little  prince,  this  royal  masquerading,  is  a  very  dangerous  and 
expensive  amusement,  and  one  of  the  King's  menus  plaisirs,1 
which  ought  to  be  reformed.  This  duchy,  which  is  not  worth 
four  thousand  pounds  a-year  at  best  to  revenue,  is  worth  forty 
or  fifty  thousand  to  influence. 

The  Duchy  of  Lancaster  and  the  County  Palatine  of  Lancas- 
ter answered,  I  admit,  some  purpose  in  their  original  creation. 
They  tended  to  make  a  subject  imitate  a  prince.  When  Henry 
the  Fourth  from  that  stair  ascended  the  throne,  high-minded 
as  he  was,  he  was  not  willing  to  kick  away  the  ladder.  To 
prevent  that  principality  from  being  extinguished  in  the  crown, 
he  severed  it  by  Act  of  Parliament.  lie  had  a  motive,  such  as 
it  was  :  he  thought  his  title  to  the  crown  unsound,  and  his 
possession  insecure.2  He  therefore  managed  a  retreat  in  his 
duchy,  which  Lord  Coke  calls  (I  do  not  know  why)  "par  multis 
rcgnis"'*  He  flattered  liiinselfth.it  it  was  practicable  to  make 
a  projecting  point  half  way  down,  to  break  his  fall  from  the 
precipice  of  royalty  ;  as  if  it  were  possible  for  one  who  had  lost 

9  Duke  Humphrey  appears  to  be  an  old  cant  term  for  a  high-titled  nonentity; 
ami  Jjinii>f/  tcillt  Duke  Ilumphroj  was  long  a  common  phrase,  used  of  one  so 
naked  of  cash,  that  lie  had  to  make  his  dinner  on  air.  Nares  accounts  for  it  as 
follow*:  "  Humphrey,  Dtiki:  of  Gloucester,  though  re-ally  buried  at  St.  Albau's, 
was  supposed  to  have  a  monument  in  old  St.  Paul's,  from  which  one  part  of  the 
Church  was  termed  Ilukc  llitmi>hrnf*  ]]',dk.  In  this,  as  the  church  was  then  a 
place,  of  the  mo.-,t  public  resort,  they  who  had  no  means  of  procuring  a  dinner 
fiequently  loitered  ahout,  probably  in  hopes  of  meeting  with  an  invitation,  but 
iiiidcr  pretence  <>f  looking  at  the  monuments." 

1  One  of  the  King's  little  pleasures. 

2  Henry  the  Fourth,  known  in  history  as  Bolingbroke,  so  called  from  the 
place  of  his  birth,  held  the  crown,  not  by  succession,  but  by  usurpation,  he  hav- 
ing violently  seized  it  from  his  cousin,  Richard  the  Second.    His  father,  John, 
Duke  of  Lancaster,  was  the  third  son  of  Edward  the  Third;  and,  on  the  failure; 
or  exclusion  of  Richard,  the  crown,  according  to  the  strict  rule  of  succession, 
should  have,  devolved  to  the  heirs  of  Lionel,  Duke;  of  Clarence,  the  second  son 
of  Edward  the  Third.    These  heirs  were  then  mere  children,  and  their  family 
name  wa>  Mortimer,  the  only  child  left  by  Lionel  being  a  daughter.    As  Henry 
knew  his  tenure  of  the  crown  to  be  a  usurpation,  he  was  naturally  distrustful 
of  his  title,  and  so  was  the  more  tenacious  of  the  dukedom  of  Lancaster,  which 
was  his  by  inheritance. 

3  That  is,  equal  or  equivalent  to  many  kingdoms.    A8  Burke  did  not  know 
the  reason  of  Lord  Coke's  language,  I  do  not  blush  to  own  the  same  ignorance. 


70  BURKE. 

a  kingdom  to  keep  any  thing  else.  However,  it  is  evident  that 
he  thought  so.  When  Henry  the  Fifth  united,  by  Act  of 
Parliament,  the  estates  of  his  mother  to  the  duchy,  he  had  the 
same  predilection  with  his  father  to  the  root  of  his  family 
honours,  and  the  same  policy  in  enlarging  the  sphere  of  a  possi- 
ble retreat  from  the  slippery  royalty  of  the  two  great  crowns  he 
held.4  All  this  was  changed  by  Edward  the  Fourth.  He  had 
no  such  family  partialities,  and  his  policy  was  the  reverse  of 
that  of  Henry  the  Fourth  and  Henry  the  Fifth.  He  accord- 
ingly again  united  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  to  the  crown.  But 
when  Henry  the  Seventh,  who  chose  to  consider  himself  as  of 
the  House  of  Lancaster,  came  to  the  throne,  he  brought  with 
him  the  old  pretensions  and  the  old  politics  of  that  House.5  A 
new  Act  of  Parliament,  a  second  time,  dissevered  the  Duchy 
of  Lancaster  from  the  crown  ;  and  in  that  line  things  continued 
until  the  subversion  of  the  monarchy,  when  principalities  and 
powers  fell  along  with  the  throne.  The  Duchy  of  Lancaster 
must  have  been  extinguished,  if  Cromwell,  who  began  to 
form  ideas  of  aggrandizing  his  House  and  raising  the  several 
branches  of  it,  had  not  caused  the  duchy  to  be  again  separated 
from  the  commonwealth,  by  an  Act  of  the  Parliament  of  those, 
times. 

What  partiality,  what  objects  of  the  politics  of  the  House  of 
Lancaster,  or  of  Cromwell,  has  his  present  Majesty,  or  his 
Majesty's  family?  What  power  have  they  within  any  of  these 
principalities,  which  they  have  not  within  their  kingdom  ?  In 
what  manner  is  the  dignity  of  the  nobility  concerned  in  these 
principalities?  What  rights  have  the  subject  there,  which  they 
have  not  at  least  equally  in  every  other  part  of  the  nation? 
These  distinctions  exist  for  no  good  end  to  the  King,  to  the  no- 
bility, or  to  the  people.  They  ought  not  to  exist  at  all.  If  the 
Crown  (contrary  to  its  nature,  but  most  conformably  to  the 
whole  tenour  of  the  advice  that  has  been  lately  given)  should 
so  far  forget  its  dignity  as  to  contend  that  these  jurisdictions 
and  revenues  are  estates  of  private  property,  I  am  rather  for 

4  The  two  great  crowns  held  by  Henry  the  Fifth  were  those  of  England  and 
France,  he  having  won  the  latter  by  conquest.  —  Edward  the  Fourth  was  de- 
scended from   Edmund,  Duke  of  York,  the  fourth  son  of  Edward  the  Third. 
But  his  grandfather  had  married  the  heir  of  Lionel,  and  so  his  father  claimed 
the  crown  in  right  of  his  mother. 

5  John,  the  Duke  of  Lancaster  mentioned  in  note  2  above,  had  two  families 
of  children,  one  by  his  lawful  wife,  the  other  by  Catharine  Swynforcl.    The  lat- 
ter took  the  name  of  Beaufort,  from  the  place  of  their  birth,  which  was  Beaufort 
Castle,  in  France.    After  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  John  married  the  mother  of 
these  children,  nnd  the  children  AVCI-C  legitimated  by  Act  of  Parliament.    A 
daughter  of  tljc  Beaufort  branch  was  married  to  Owen  Tudor,  and  hence  be- 
came  the  mother  of  Henry  the  Seventh. 


SPEECH    ON   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  71 

acting  as  if  that  groundless  claim  were  of  some  weight  than  for 
giving  up  that  essential  part  of  the  reform.  I  would  value  the 
clear  income,  and  give  a  clear  annuity  to  the  Crown,  taken  on 
the  medium  produce  for  twenty  years. 

If  the  Crown  has  any  favourite  name  or  title,  if  the  subject 
has  any  matter  of  local  accommodation  within  any  of  these 
jurisdictions,  it  is  meant  to  preserve  them, — and  to  improve 
them,  if  any  improvement  can  be  suggested.  As  to  the  Crown 
reversions  or  titles  upon  the  property  of  the  people  there,  it  is 
proposed  to  convert  them  from  a  snare  to  their  independence 
into  a  relief  from  their  burdens.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  unite 
all  the  five  principalities  to  the  Crown,  and  to  its  ordinary  ju- 
risdiction,—  to  abolish  all  those  offices  that  produce  an  useless 
and  chargeable  separation  from  the  body  of  the  people, — to 
compensate  those  who  do  not  hold  their  oflices  (if  any  such 
there  are)  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown, — to  extinguish  vexa- 
tious titles  by  an  Act  of  short  limitation,0  —  to  sell  those  unprof- 
itable estates  which  support  useless  jurisdictions, — and  to  turn 
the  tenant-right  into  a  fee,7  on  such  moderate  terms  as  will  be 
better  for  the  Slate  than  its  present  right,  and  which  it  is  im- 
possible for  any  rational  tenant  to  refuse. 

As  to  the  duchies,  their  judicial  economy  may  be  provided 
for  without  charge.  They  have  only  to  fall  of  course  into  the 
common  county  administration.  A  commission  more  or  less, 
made  or  omitted,  settles  the  matter  fully.  As  to  Wales,  it  has 
been  proposed  to  add  a  judge  to  the  several  courts  of  Westmin- 
ster Hall ;  and  it  has  been  considered  as  an  improvement  in 
itself.  For  my  part,  I  cannot  pretend  to  speak  upon  it  with 
clearness  or  with  decision ;  but  certainly  this  arrangement 
would  be  more  than  sullicient  for  Wales.  My  original  thought 
was,  to  suppress  five  of  the  eight  judges;  and  to  leave  the 
chief-justice  of  Chester,  with  the  two  senior  judges;  and,  to 
facilitate  the  business,  to  throw  the  twelve  counties  into  six 
districts,  holding  the  sessions  alternately  in  the  counties  of 
which  each  district  shall  be  composed.  But  on  this  I  shall  be 
more  clear  when  I  come  to  the  particular  bill. 

Sir,  the  House  will  now  see,  whether,  in  praying  for  judgment 

"ust  the  minor  principalities,  I  do  not  act  in  conformity  to 

the  laws  that  I  had  laid  to  myself ;  of  getting  rid  of  every  juris- 

C  An  Act  of  limitation  is  a  statute  limiting  a  given  claim  or  tenure  to  a  cer- 
tain s)iccilicd  time;  so  that  it  shall  cease,  say,  at  the  end  of  twenty  years,  or  on 
the  death  of  the  present,  occupant. 

7  Tenure  in  fee,  or  tenure  in  fee-simple,  is  the  strongest  tenure  known  to  Eng- 
ii.-h  law  :  it  involves  an  entire  ami  exclusive  right  to  the  thing  held.  A  tenant- 
right  differs  from  this  in  being  a  sort  of  lease-hold,  as  a  tenure  for  life  or  for  u 
given  term  of  years. 


72  BUBKE. 

diction  more  subservient  to  oppression  and  expense  than  to  any 
end  of  justice  or  honest  policy ;  of  abolishing  offices  more  ex- 
pensive than  useful ;  of  combining  duties  improperly  separated  ; 
of  changing  revenues  more  vexatious  than  productive  into 
ready  money  ;  of  suppressing  offices  which  stand  in  the  way  of 
economy ;  and  of  cutting  off  lurking  subordinate  treasuries. 
Dispute  the  rules,  controvert  the  application,  or  give  your 
hands  to  this  salutary  measure. 

Most  of  the  same  rules  will  be  found  applicable  to  my  second 
object, —  the  landed  estate  of  the  Crown.  A  landed  estate  is  cer- 
tainly the  very  worst  which  the  Crown  can  possess.  All  minute 
and  dispersed  possessions,  possessions  that  are  often  of  indeter- 
minate value,  and  which  require  a  continued  personal  attend- 
ance, are  of  a  nature  more  proper  for  private  management  than 
public  administration.  They  are  fitter  for  the  care  of  a  frugal 
land-steward  than  of  an  office  in  the  State.  Whatever  they 
may  possibly  have  been  in  other  times  or  in  other  countries, 
they  are  not  of  magnitude  enough  with  us  to  occupy  a  public 
department,  nor  to  provide  for  a  public  object.  They  are 
already  given  up  to  Parliament,  and  the  gift  is  not  of  great 
value.  Common  prudence  dictates,  even  in  the  management  of 
private  affairs,  that  all  dispersed  and  chargeable  estates  should 
be  sacrificed  to  the  relief  of  estates  more  compact  and  better 
circumstanced. 

If  it  be  objected  that  these  lands  at  present  would  sell  at  a 
low  market,  this  is  answered  by  showing  that  money  is  at  a 
high  price.  The  one  balances  the  other.  Lands  sell  at  the 
current  rate  ;  and  nothing  can  sell  for  more.  But,  be  the  price 
what  it  may,  a  great  object  is  always  answered,  whenever  any 
property  is  transferred  from  hands  that  are  not  fit  for  that 
property  to  those  that  are.  The  buyer  and  seller  must  mutu- 
ally profit  by  such  a  bargain  ;  and,  what  rarely  happens  in  mat- 
ters of  revenue,  the  relief  of  the  subject  will  go  hand  in  hand 
with  the  profit  of  the  Exchequer. 

As  to  the  forest  lands,  in  which  the  Crown  has  (where  they  are 
not  granted  or  prescriptively  held)  the  dominion  of  the  soil,  and 
.the  vert*  find' venison,  that  is  to  say,  the  timber  and  the  game, 
and  in  which  the  people  have  a  variety  of  rights  in  common,  of 
herbage,  and  other  commons,  according  to  the  usage  of  the 
several  forests, — I  propose  to  have  those  rights  of  the  Crown 
valued  as  manorial  rights9  are  valued  on  an  inclosure,  and  a 

8  reriisfrom  the  Latin  virere,  to  be  green.    In  English  Fortvt  Law,  it  in- 
eludes  every  thing  that  grows  and  bears  a  given  leaf  within  the  foiv.-t. 

9  Manorial  rlyhis  are  rights  vested  in  a  lord  or  lady  of  a  manor;  that  is,  the 
right  which  such  lord  or  lady  has  to  a  certain  specified  share  of  the  produce,  or 
to  certain  stipulated   services,  from  the  occupant  of  an  CtUUe,  whose  tenure 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  73 

defined  portion  of  land  to  be  given  for  them,  which  land  is  to 
be  sold  for  the  public  benefit. 

As  to  the  timber,  I  propose  a  survey  of  the  whole.  What  is 
useless  for  the  naval  purposes  of  the  kingdom  I  would  condemn 
and  dispose  of  for  the  security  of  what  may  be  useful,  and 
inclose  such  other  parts  as  may  be  most  fit  to  furnish  a  perpet- 
ual supply,  —  wholly  extinguishing,  for  a  very  obvious  reason, 
all  right  of  venison  in  those  parts. 

The  forest  rit/hts  which  extend  over  the  lands  and  possessions 
of  others,  being  of  no  profit  to  the  Crown,  and  a  grievance,  as 
far  as  it  goes,  to  the  subject,— these  I  propose  to  extinguish 
without  charge  to  the  proprietors.  The  several  commons1  are 
to  be  allotted  and  compensated  for,  upon  ideas  which  I  shall 
hereafter  explain.  They  are  nearly  the  same  with  the  princi- 
ples upon  which  you  have  acted  in  private  inclosures.  I  shall 
never  quit  precedents,  where  I  find  them  applicable.  For  those 
regulations  and  compensations,  and  for  every  other  part  of  the 
detail,  you  will  be  so  indulgent  as  to  give  me  credit  for  the 
•;it. 

The  revenue  to  be  obtained  from  the  sale  of  the  forest  lands 
and  rights  will  not  be  so  considerable,  I  believe,  as  many  people 
have  imagined;  and  I  conceive  it  would  be  unwise  to  screw  it 
up  to  the  utmost,  or  even  to  suffer  bidders  to  enhance,  accord- 
ing to  their  eagerness,  the  purchase  of  objects  wherein  the 
expense  of  that  purchase  may  weaken  the  capital  to  be  cm- 
ployed  in  their  cultivation.  This,!  am  well  aware,  might  give 
room  for  partiality  in  the  disposal.  In  my  opinion  it  would  be 
the  lesser  evil  of  the  two.  J>ut  1  really  conceive  that  a  rule  of 
fair  preference  might  be  established,  which  would  take  away 
all  sort  of  unjust  and  corrupt  partiality.  The  principal  revenue 
which  I  propose  to  draw  from  these  uncultivated  wastes  is  to 
spring  from  the  improvement  and  population  of  the  kingdom, — 
which  never  can  happen  without  producing  an  improvement 
ud\  untageous  to  the  revenues  of  the  Crown  than  the  rents 
of  the  be-t  landed  estate  which  it  can  hold.  I  believe,  Sir,  it 
will  hardly  be  necessary  for  me  to  add  that  in  this  sale  I  natu- 
r:illy  "xe-.-pt  all  the  houses,  gardens,  and  parks  belonging  to  the 
n,  and  such  one  forest  as  shall  be  chosen  by  his  Majesty 
unmodated  to  his  pleasures. 

By  means  of  this  part  of  the  reform  will  fall  the  expensive 

.<  nvise  entire'  and  absolute.    So  in  cases  of  lands  held  in  fee-simple  by 

Mit  s  but  subject  to  perpetual  rent. 

1     '  the  word  is  lien:  used,  are  pieces  of  land  enjoyed  in  common 

by  tin:  people  of  n  -hen  neighbourhood;  and  the  meaning  is,  that  the  rights  of 
such  people  shall  be  bought  out,  and  the  land*  allotted  to  individuals  in  exclu- 
sive possession. 


74  BURKE. 

office  of  surveyor-general,  with  all  the  influence  that  attends  it. 
By  this  will  fall  two  chief-justices  in  Eyre,-  with  all  their  train  of 
dependants.  You  need  be  under  no  apprehension,  Sir,  that 
your  office  is  to  be  touched  in  its  emoluments.  They  are  yours 
bylaw;  and  they  are  but  a  moderate  part  of  the  compensation 
which  is  given  to  you  for  the  ability  with  which  you  execute  an 
office  of  quite  another  sort  of  importance:  it  is  far  from  over- 
paying your  diligence,  or  more  than  sufficient  for  sustaining  the 
high  rank  you  stand  in  as  the  first  gentleman  of  England.3  As 
to  the  duties  of  your  chief-justiceship,  they  are  very  different 
from  those  for  which  you  have  received  the  office.  Your 
dignity  is  too  high  for  a  jurisdiction  over  wild  beasts,  and  your 
learning  and  talents  too  valuable  to  he  wa>te<l  as  chief-justice 
of  a  desert.  I  cannot  reconcile  it  to  myself,  that  you,  Sir, 
should  be  stuck  up  as  a  useless  piece  of  antiquity. 

I  have  now  disposed  of  the  unprofitable  landed  estates  of  the 
Crown,  and  thrown  them  into  the  mass  of  private  property  ;  by 
which  they  will  come,  through  the  course  of  circulation,  and 
through  the  political  secretions  of  the  State,  into  our  better- 
understood  and  better-ordered  revenues. 

1  come  next  to  the  great  supreme  body  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment itself.     I  npproaeli   it   with  that  awe  and  reverence  with 
which  a  young  physician  approaches  to  the  cure  of  the  disor- 
ders of  his  parent.     Disorders,  Sir,  and  infirmities,  there  are, 

—  such  disorders,  that  all  attempts  towards  method,  prudence, 
and  frugality  will  be  perfectly  vain,  whilst  a  system  of  confu- 
sion remains,  which  is  not  only  alien,  but  adverse  to  all  econ- 
omy ;  a  system  which  is  not  only  prodigal  in  its  very  essence, 
but  causes  every  thing  else  which  belongs  to  it  to  be  prodi- 
gally conducted. 

It  is  impossible,  Sir,  for  any  person  to  be  an  economist,  where 
no  order  in  payments  is  established  ;  it  is  impossible  for  a  man 
to  be  an  economist,  who  is  not  able  to  take  a  comparative  view 
of  his  means  and  of  his  expenses  for  the  yeav  which  lies  before 
him ;  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  an  economist,  under 
whom  various  officers  in  their  several  departments  may  spend 

—  even  just  what  they  please,— and  often  with  an  emulation  of 
expense,  as  contributing  to  the  importance,  if  not  profit,  oi  their 
several  departments.    Thus  much  is  certain,— that  neither  the 

2  Eyre  is  from  the  old  French  erre,  journey,  or  march.    A  justice  in  Eyre  is, 
properly,  an  itinerant  judge;  that  is,  one  who  travels  a  cuvuit.  In  hold  courts  in 
different  counties.    What  follows  infers  that  the  Speaker  of  t'.ie  House  of  Com- 
mons is,  exojjicio,  a  chief-justice  in  Eyiv,  and  that  he  lias  certain  emoluments  or 
perquisites  as  such,  though  the  office  is  in  his  case  merely  nominal. 

3  By  n  traditionary  opinion  or  maxim,  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons 
is,  ipso  facto,  "  the  first  gentleman  of  England." 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  75 

present  nor  any  other  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  has  ever  been 
able  to  take  a  survey,  or  to  make  even  a  tolerable  guess,  of  the 
expenses  of  government  for  any  one  year,  so  as  to  enable  him 
Avith  the  least  decree  of  certainty,  or  even  probability,  to  bring 
his  affairs  within  compass.  Whatever  scheme  maybe  formed 
upon  them  must  be  made  on  a  calculation  of  chances.  As  things 
are  circumstanced,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  cannot  make 
an  estimate.  I  am  sure  I  serve  the  King,  and  I  am  sure  I  assist 
administration,  by  putting  economy  at  least  in  their  power. 
We  must  admit  r/r/ss  Nor/ax;  we  must  (as  far  as  their  nature 
admits) appropriate  funds;  or  every  thing,  however  reformed, 
will  fall  again  into  the  old  confusion. 

Coming  upon  this  ground  of  the  civil  list,4  the  first  thing  in 
dignity  and  charge  that  attracts  our  notice  is  the  royal  housc- 
huttl.  This  establishment,  in  my  opinion,  is  exceedingly  abus- 
ive in  its  constitution.  It  is  formed  upon  manners  and  customs 
that  have  l<mg  since  expired.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  formed, 
in  many  respects,  upon /<  wM  y*/-/m-/y>/c.$.  In  the  feudal  times 
it  was  not  uncommon,  even  among  subjects,  for,  the  lowest 
oiiices  to  lie  held  by  considerable  persons,  —  persons  as  unfit  by 
their  incapacity  as  improper  from  their  rank  to  occupy  such 
employment-.  They  wen-  held  by  patent,  sometimes  for  life, 
and  sometimes  by  inheritance.  If  my  memory  does  not  deceive 
me,  a  person  of  no  slight  consideration  held  the  office  of  patent, 
hereditary  cook  to  an  Karl  <>!'  Warwick  :  the  Karl  of  Warwick's 
soups,  I  fear,  were  not  the  better  for  the  dignity  of  his  kitchen. 
I  think  it  was  ;m  Kurl  of  Gloucester  who  officiated  as  steward  of 
the  household  to  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury.  Instances  of 
the  same  kind  may  in  some  degree  be  found  in  the  Northum- 

4    The  phrase  <•/,•//  list  occurs  frequently  in  this  speech.    It  means  the  office- 
holders  of  the  civil  service  a<  distinguished  from  those  of  the  military  and  na- 
val.   The  custom  <>f  Parliament  at  that  lime  was  not  to  make  specific  appropri- 
ations for  llir  -e\er;d  part*  and  persons  of  this  service,  strictly  limiting  the  ex- 
penses to  the  sums  appropriated,  but  to  vote  a  sum  in  the  gross,  leaving  it  to  bo 
payment  of  salaries,  pensions,  £(•.,  at  the  discretion  of  Ministers  or  of  the 
The  result  \va-,  that  the  MUDS  thus  voted  were  constantly  exceeded,  the 
.icemnulated,  ami  every  few  years  large  extra  sums  were  required  for 
payment  <>f  \\  hat  were  called  the  King's  debts.    Of  course  the  officers  and  ser- 
vants of  the  King's  household  were  included  in  the  civil  list;  but  this  part  of  the 
service  was  then  a  huge,  multitudinous  sinccurism,  the  cost  of  which  was  nei- 
•  !•••  nor  !<•->  than  a  \  ast  fund  of  corruption  under  the  name  of  influence. 
As  members  of  Parliament  get  no  pay  from  government  on  that  score,  there 
I  small  local  constituencies  who  were  glad  to  have  their  members 
paid  from  whatever  source.     And  so  a  large  number  of  men,  or  things,  nomi- 
iiutli/  holding  places  in  the  royal  hou.-ehold,  and  drawing  fat  salaries  as  such, 
various  arts,  and  through  what  were  called  pocket  boroughs,  put  into 
the  House  of  Commons,  where  they  were  always  to  vote  just  as  the  King  or  his 
favourites  wished. 


76 

berland  house-book,  and  other  family  records.  There  was 
some  reason  in  ancient  necessities  for  these  ancient  customs. 
Protection  was  wanted ;  and  the  domestic  tie,  though  not  the 
highest,  was  the  closest. 

The  King's  household  has  not  only  several  strong  traces  of 
this./V  mlality,  but  it  is  formed  also  upon  the  principles  of  a  body 
corporate :  it  has  its  own  magistrates,  courts,  and  by-laws. 
This  might  be  necessary  in  the  ancient  times,  in  order  to  have 
a  government  within  itself,  capable  of  regulating  the  vast  and 
often  unruly  multitude  which  composed  and  attended  it.  This 
was  the  origin  of  the  ancient  court  calh-d  the  Green  Cloth,— 
composed  of  the  marshal,  treasurer,  and  other  great  officers  of 
the  household,  with  certain  clerks.  The  rich  subjects  of  the 
kingdom,  who  had  formerly  the  same  establishments,  (only  on 
a  reduced  scale,)  have  since  altered  their  economy,  and  turned 
the  course  of  their  expense  from  the  maintenance  of  vast 
establishments  within  their  walls  to  the  employment  of  a  great 
variety  of  independent  trades  abroad.  Their  r.iilueiice  is  less- 
ened; but  a.  mode  of  accommodation  and  a  style  of  splendour 
suited  to  the  manners  of  the  times  has  been  increased.  Roy- 
alty itself  has  insensibly  followed,  and  the  royal  household  has 
been  carried  away  by  the  resistless  tide  of  manners,  but  with 
this  very  material  difference,  —  private  men  have  got  rid  of  the 
establishments  along  with  the  reasons  of  them;  whereas  the 
royal  household  has  lost  all  that  was  .--lately  and  venerable  in 
the  antique  manners,  without  retrenching  any  thing  of  the 
cumbrous  charge  of  a  Gothic  establishment.  It  is  shrunk  into 
the  polished  littleness  of  modern  elegance  and  personal  accom- 
modation ;  it  has  evaporated  from  the  gross  concrete  into  an 
essence  and  rectified  spirit  of  expense,  where  you  have  tuns  of 
ancient  pomp  in  a  vial  of  modern  luxury. 

But  when  the  reason  of  old  establishments  is  gone,  it  is  ab- 
surd to  preserve  nothing  but  the  burden  of  them.  This  is 
superstitiously  to  embalm  a  carcass  not  worth  an  ounce  of  the 
gums  that  are  used  to  preserve  it.  It  is  to  burn  precious  oils  in 
the  tomb  ;  it  is  to  offer  meat  and  drink  to  the  dead, — not  so 
much  an  honour  to  the  deceased  as  a  disgrace  to  the  survivors. 
Our  palaces  are  vast  inhospitable  halls.  There  the  bleak  winds, 
there  "Boreas,  and  Eurus,  and  Caurus,  and  Argestes  loud," 
howling  through  the  vacant  lobbies,  and  clattering  the  doors  of 
deserted  guard-rooms,  appal  the  imagination,  and  conjure  up 
the  grim  spectres  of -departed  tyrants, — the  Saxon,  the  Gorman, 
and  the  Dane, — the  stern  Edwards  and  fierce  Henrys,— who 
stalk  from  desolation  to  desolation,  through  the  dreary  vacuity 
and  melancholy  succession  of  chill  and  comfortless  chambers. 
"When  this  tumult  subsides,  a  dead  and  still  more  frightful 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  77 

silence  would  reign  in  this  desert,  if  every  now  and  then  the 
tacking  of  hammers  did  not  announce  that  those  constant  at- 
tendants upon  all  Courts  in  all  ages,  jobs,  were  still  alive, — for 
whose  sake  alone  it  is  that  any  trace  of  ancient  grandeur  is  suf- 
fered to  remain.  Those  palaces  are  a  true  emblem  of  some  gov- 
ernments: the  inhabitants  are  decayed,  but  the  governors  and 
magistrates  still  flourish.  They  put  me  in  mind  of  Old  Sarum,5 
where  the  representatives,  more  in  number  than  the  constitu- 
ents, only  serve  to  inform  us  that  this  was  once  a  place  of  trade, 
and  sounding  with  "the  busy  hum  of  men,"  though  now  you 
can  only  trace  the  streets  by  the  colour  of  the  corn,  and  its  sole 
manufacture  is  in  members  of  1'arliament. 

These  old  establishments  were  formed  also  on  a  third  princi- 
ple, still  more  adverse  to  the  living  economy  of  the  age.  They 
were  formed,  Sir,  on  the  principle  of  purveyance  and  receipt  in 
kind.  In  former  days,  whon  the  household  was  vast,  and  the 
supply  scanty  and  precarious,  the  royal  purveyors,  sallying 
forth  from  under  tho  Gothic  portcullis  to  purchase  provision 
with  power  and  prerogative  instead  of  money,  brought  homo 
the  plunder  of  an  hundred  markets,  and  all  that  could  be  seized 
Irom  a  Hying  and  hiding  country,  and  deposited  their  spoil  in 
an  hundred  caverns,  with  each  its  keeper.  There,  every  com- 
modity, received  in  its  rawest  condition,  went  through  all  the 
processes  which  fitted  it  for  use.  This  inconvenient  receipt  pro- 
duced an  economy  suited  only  to  itself.  It  multiplied  ollices 
beyond  all  measure,— buttery,  pantry,  and  all  that  rabble  of 
pla<cs,  which,  though  profitable  to  the  holders,  and  expensive 
to  the  State,  arc  almo-t  too  mean  to  mention. 

All  this  might  be,  and  I  believe  was,  necessary  at  first ;  for  it 
is  remarkable,  that  />/</•>•/  i/itm-i;  after  its  regulation  had  been  the 
subject  of  a  long  line  of  statutes,  (not  fewer,  I  think,  than 
twenty-six,}  U:1S  wholly  taken  away  by  tho  12th  of  Charles  the 
Second;  yet  in  the  next  year  of  the  same  reign  it  was  found 
;ry  to  revive  it  by  a  special  Act  of  Parliament,  for  the 
sake  of  the  King's  journeys.  This,  Sir,  is  curious,  and  what 
would  hardly  be  expected  in  so  reduced  a  Court  as  that  of 
<  harles  the  Second,  and  in  so  improved  a  country  as  England 
might  then  bo  thought.  But  so  it  was.  In  our  time,  one  well- 
iilled  and  well-covered  stage-coach  requires  more  accommoda- 
tion than  a  royal  progress,  and  every  district,  at  an  hour's 
svarning,  can  supply  an  army. 

I  do  not  .'-ay,  Sir,  that  all  these  establishments,  whose  princi- 
ple is  gone,  have  been  systematically  kept  up  for  iniluence 
solely:  neglect  had  its  share.  But  this  I  am  sure  of, —  that  a 

6    Sarum  is  an  ancient  contraction,  or  corruption,  of  Salisbury. 


78  BURKE. 

consideration  of  influence  has  hindered  any  one  from  attempt- 
ing to  pull  them  down.  For  the  purposes  of  influence,  and  for 
those  purposes  only,  are  retained  half  at  least  of  the  household 
establishments.  Xo  revenue,  no,  not  a  royal  revenue,  can  exist 
under  the  accumulated  charge  of  ancient  establishment,  mod- 
ern luxury,  and  Parliamentary  political  corruption. 

If,  therefore,  we  aim  at  regulating  this  household,  the  ques- 
tion will  be,  whether  we  ought  to  economize  by  detail  or  by 
principle.  The  example  we  have  had  of  the  success  of  an  at- 
tempt to  economize  by  detail,  and  uiulor  establishments  adverse 
to  the  attempt,  may  loud  to  decide  this  question. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  Majesty's  ivign,  Lord  Talbot  came  to 
the  administration  of  a  great  department  in  the  household.  I  be- 
lieve no  man  ever  entered  into  his  Majesty's  service,  or  into  the 
service  of  any  prince,  with  a  more  clear  integrity,  or  with  more 
zeal  and  affection  for  the  interest  of  his  master,  and,  I  must 
add,  with  abilities  for  a  still  higher  service.  Economy  was 
then  announced  as  a  maxim  of  the  reign.  This  noble  lord, 
therefore,  made  several  attempts  towards  a  reform.  In  the 
year  1777,  when  the  King's  civil-list  debts  came  last  to  be  paid, 
he  explained  very  fully  the  success  of  his  undertaking.  lie 
told  the  House  of  Lords  that  he  had  attempted  to  reduce  the 
charges  of  the  King's  tables  and  his  kitchen.  The  thing.  Sir, 
was  not  below  him.  He  knew  that  there  is  nothing  interesting 
in  the  concerns  of  men  whom  we  love  and  honour,  that  is  be- 
neath our  attention.  "Love,"  says  one  of  our  old  p<»ct 
teems  no  office  mean," — and  with  still  more  spirit,  "  Entire 
affection  scorneth  nicer  hands."  Frugality,  Sir,  is  founded  on 
the  principle,  that  all  riches  have  limits.  A  royal  household, 
grown  enormous,  even  in  the  meanest  departments,  may  weaken 
and  perhaps  destroy  all  energy  in  the  highest  offices  of  the 
State.  The  gorging  a  royal  kitchen  may  stint  and  famish  the 
negotiations  of  a  kingdom.  Therefore  the  object  was  worthy  of 
his,  was  worthy  of  any  man's  attention. 

In  consequence  of  this  noble  lord's  resolution,  (as  he  told  the 
other  House,)  he  reduced  several  tables,  and  put  the  persons 
entitled  to  them  upon  board  wages,  much  to  their  own  satisfac- 
tion. But,  unluckily,  subsequent  duties  requiring  constant  at- 
tendance, it  was  not  possible  to  prevent  their  being  fed  whore 
they  were  employed:  and  thus  this  first  step  towards  economy 
doubled  the  expense. 

There  was  another  disaster  far  more  doleful  than  this.  I 
shall  state  it,  as  the  cause  of  that  misfortune  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  almost  all  our  prodigality.  Lord  Talbot  attempted  to  reform 
the  kitchen  ;  but  such,  as  he  well  observed,  is  the  consequence 
of  having  duty  done  by  one  person  whilst  another  enjoys  the 


SPEECH   OK   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  79 

emoluments,  that  he  found  himself  frustrated  in  all  his  designs. 
On  that  rock  his  whole  adventure  split,  his  whole  scheme  of 
economy  was  dashed  to  pieces.  His  department  became  more 
expensive  than  ever;  the  civil-list  debt  accumulated.  Why? 
It  was  truly  from  a  cause  which,  though  perfectly  adequate  to 
the  effect,  one  would  not  have  instantly  guessed.  It  was  be- 
cause tic  ////-/fs/"'/"  in  the  King'  8  kitchen  was  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment! The  King's  domestic  servants  were  all  undone,  his 
tradesman  remained  unpaid  and  became  bankrupt,  —  because  the 
turnfijiit  I'fthc  King'*  kit<-1,,  „  Mas  "  number  of  Parliament.  His 
Majesty's  slumbers  were  interrupted,  his  pillow  was  stuffed 
with  thorns,  and  his  peace  of  mind  entirely  broken,  —  because  the 
King's  tui-n*i>it  n-<ts  a  member  of  ParUnnn  nt.  The  judges  were 
unpaid,  the  justice  of  the  kingdom  bent  and  gave  way,  the  for- 
eign ministers  remained  inactive  and  unprovided,  the  system  of 
Europe-  was  dissolved,  the  chain  of  our  alliances  was  broken,  all 
the  wheels  of  government  at  home  and  abroad  were  stopped,  — 
because  the  King's  turnspit  was  a  member  of  Parliament.1 

Such,  sir,  was  the  situation  of  affairs,  and  such  the  cause  of 
that  situation,  when  his  Majesty  came  a  second  time  to  Parlia- 
ment to  desire  the  payment  of  those  debts  which  the  employ- 
ment of  its  members  in  various  ollices,  visible  and  invisible, 
had  occasioned.  I  believe  that  a  like  fate  will  attend  every 
attempt  at  economy  by  detail,  under  similar  circumstances,  and 
in  every  department.  A  complex,  operose  oflice  of  account 
iiml  control  is,  in  itself,  and  even  if  members  of  Parliament  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it,  the  most  prodigal  of  all  things.  The 
most  audacious  robberies  or  the  m»»t  subtle  frauds  would  never 
venture  upon  such  a  wa^te  as  an  over-careful  detailed  guard 
against  them  will  infallibly  produce.  In  our  establishments, 
we  frequently  see  an  otlice  of  account  of  an  hundred  pounds  a- 
\ear  rxpen>e,  and  another  ollice  of  an  equal  expense  to  control 
that  ollice,  and  tin;  whole  upon  a  matter  that  is  not  worth 
nty  shillin 

To  avoid,  therefore,  this  minute  care,  which  produces  the 

consequences  of   the  most   extensive  neglect,  and   to  oblige 

members  of  Parliament,  to  attend  to  public  cares,  and  not  to  the 

!e  cliices  of  doinotic  management,  I  propose,  Sir,  to  ccono- 

propose  to  put  affairs  into  that  train 


('•  Formerly,  in  roasting  a  turkey  or  a  piece  of  meat,  the  way  was,  to  thrust 
through  it  a  >tccl  or  iron  rod,  sharpened  to  a  point,  at  one  end,  and  called  a  spit, 
and  then  sling  it  up  before  the  lire,  where  it  was  kept  turning  till  done.  In 
this  way  I  have  myself  whirled  many  a  turkey  and  sparerib  for  thanksgiving 
dinner.  Thi.n  explains  what  a  turnspit  is. 

7  Uurke  i»  quoting  from  a  speech  made  by  Lord  Tulbot  in  the  House  of 
Lordd. 


80  BURKE. 

which  experience  points  out  as  the  most  effectual,  from  the 
nature  of  things,  and  from  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind. 
In  all  dealings,  where  it  is  possible,  the  principles  of  radical 
economy  prescribe  three  things  :  first,  undertaking  by  the 
great;  secondly,  engaging  with  persons  of  skill  in  the  sub- 
ject-matter ;  thirdly,  engaging  with  those  who  shall  have  an 
immediate  and  direct  interest  in  the  proper  execution  of  the 
business. 

To  avoid  frittering  and  crumbling  down  the  attention  by  a 
blind,  unsystematic  observance  of  every  trifle,  it  has  ever  been 
found  the  best  way  to  do  all  things  which  are  great  in  the  total 
amount  and  minute  in  the  component  parts,  l»y  a  (imcral  con- 
tract. The  principles  of  trade  have  so  pervaded  every  spec -ies 
of  dealing,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  objects,  all  transac- 
tions are  got  so  much  into  syMi-m,  that  we  may,  at  a  moment's 
warning,  and  to  a  farthing's  value,  be  informed  at  what  rate 
any  service  may  be  supplied.  No  dealing  is  exempt  from  the 
possibility  of  fraud.  Uut  by  a  contract  on  a  matter  certain  you 
have  this  advantage,— you  are  sure  to  know  the  utmost 
of  the  fraud  to  which  you  are  subject.  By  a  contract  with  a 
person  in  his  own  trade  yon  are  Mire  you  shall  not  suffer  1  . 
of  skill.  By  a  short  contract  you  arc  sure  of  making  it  the 
interest  of  the  contractor  to  exert  that  skill  for  the  satisl'a< -tioii 
of  his  employers. 

I  mean  to  derogate  nothing  from  the  diligence  or  integrity  of 
the  present,  or  of  any  former  board  of  Green  Cloth.  But  what 
skill  can  members  of  Parliament  obtain  in  that  low  kind  of 
province?  What  pleasure  can  they  have  i:i  tin4  execution  of 
that  kind  of  duty?  And  if  they  should  neglect  it,  how  d 
affect  their  interest,  when  we  know  that  it  is  their  vote  in  Par- 
liament, and  not  their  diligence  in  cookery  or  catering,  that 
recommends  them  to  their  oilice,  or  keeps  them  in  it y 

I  therefore  propose  that  the  King's  tables  (to  whatever  number 
of  tables,  or  covers  to  each,  he  shall  think  proper  to  command) 
should  be  classed  by  the  steward  of  the  household,  and  should 
be  contracted  for,  according  to  their  rank,  by  the  head  or  « 
that  the  estimate  and  circumstance  of  the  contract  should  be 
carried  to  the  Treasury  to  be  approved;  and  that  its  faithful 
and  satisfactory  performance  should  be  reported  t'.ieiv  ]>:• 
to  any  payment;  that  there,  and  there  only,  should  th 
mcnt  be  made.    I  propose  that  men  should  be  contracted  with 
only  in  their  proper  trade  ;  and  that  no  member  of  Parliament 
should  be  capable  of  such  contract.    By  this  plan,  aim: 
the  infinite  offices  under  the  lord  steward  may  l>e  spared, — to 
the  extreme  simplification,  and  to  the  far  better  execution,  of 
every  one  of  his  functions.    The  King  of  Prussia  is  so  served. 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  81 

ITc  is  a  great  and  eminent  (though,  indeed,  a  very  rare)  instance 
of  the  possibility  of  uniting,  in  a  mind  of  vigour  and  compass, 
an  attention  to  minute  objects  with  the  largest  views  and  the 
most  complicated  plans.  His  tables  are  served  by  contract,  and 
by  the  head.  Let  me  say,  that  no  prince  can  be  ashamed  to 
imitate  the  King  of  Prussia,  and  particularly  to  learn  in  his 
school,  when  the  problem  is,  "The  best  manner  of  reconciling 
the  state  of  a  Court  with  the  support  of  war."  Other  Courts, 
I  understand,  have  followed  him  with  effect,  and  to  their 
sati:- fact  ion. 

The  same  clew  of  principle  leads  us  through  the  labyrinth  of 
the  other  departments.     What,  Sir,  is  there  in  the  oflice  of  the 
••h-i'br  (which  has  the  care  of  the  King's  furniture)  that 
may  not  be  executed  by  the  lord  chamberlain  himself?     Ho 
has  an  honourable  appointment;  he  has  time  sufficient  to  at- 
i  to  the  duty;  and  he  has  the  vice-chamberlain  to  assist 
him.    AVhy  should  not  he  deal  also  by  contract  for  all  things 
belonging  to  this  office,  and  carry  his  estimates  first,  and  his 
report  (if  the  execution  in  its  proper  lime,  for  payment,  directly 
to  the  ISoard  of  Treasury  itself?    By  a  simple  operation,  (con- 
taining in  it  a  treble  control,)  the  expenses  of  a  department 
which  for  naked  walls,  or  walls  hung  with  cobwebs,  has  in  a 
•  the  (  'p»wn  '„' 150, 000,  may  at  length  hope  for  regu- 
lation.    J-ut,  Sir,  the  office  and  its  business  area*  variance.    As 
§,  not  to  furnish  the  palace  with  its  hangings, 
but  the  Parliament  with  its  dependent  members. 

To  what  end,  Sir,  does  the  otliee  of  mum-ing  wardrobe  serve  at 
all?  Why  should  a  ./'  //••  /  <:///'••<•  exist  for  the  sole  purpose  of  tax- 
ing the  King's  krifts  of  plate?  Its  object  falls  naturally  within 
the  chamberlain'.^  province,  and  ought  to  be  under  his  care  and 
inspection  without  any  fee.  Why  should  an  office  of  the  robes 
'.  when  t  hat  of  <j,-<>nm  of  the  stole  is  a  sinecure,  and  when  this 

oper  object  of  his  department? 

All  the>e  incumbrances,   which   are  themselves   nuisances, 
•uce   other    incuinl-rances  and  other  nuisances.     For  the 
useless  establishments  there  are  no  less  than 
///,-,.  !,-<(i*nr<  /-.s;  two  to  hold  a  purse,  and  one  to  play 

with  a  stick.8    The.  treasurer  of  the  household  is  a  mere  name, 
cofferer  and  the  treasurer  of  the  chamber  receive  and  pay 
great  sums,  which  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  they  should  cither 
,«e  or  pay.    All  the  proper  officers,  servants,  and  trades- 
men may  be  enrolled  in  their  several  departments,  and  paid  in 
proper  classes  and  times  with  great  simplicity  and  order,  at  the 
Exchequer,  and  by  direction  from  the  Treasury. 

8    That  is,  to  carry  a  wooden  rod,  which  was  his  badge  of  office. 


82  BURKE. 

The  Board  of  Works,  which  in  the  seven  years  preceding  1777 
has  cost  towards  £400,000,  and  (if  I  recollect  rightly)  has  not 
cost  less  in  proportion  from  the  beginning  of  the  reign,  is  under 
the  very  same  description  of  all  the  other  ill-contrived  establish- 
ments, and  calls  for  the  very  same  reform.  We  are  to  seek  for 
the  visible  signs  of  all  this  expense.  For  all  this  expense,  we 
do  not  see  a  building  of  the  size  and  importance  of  a  pigeon- 
house.  Buckingham  House  was  reprised  by  a  bargain  with  the 
public  for  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  ;  and  the  small  house 
at  Windsor  has  boon,  if  I  mistake  not,  undertaken  since  that 
account  was  brought  before  us.  The  good  works  of  that  Board 
Of  Works  arc  as  can-fully  concealed  as  other  good  works  ought 
to  be:  they  are  perfectly  invisible.  But  though  it  is  ti; 
feet  ion  of  charity  to  be  concealed,  it  is.  Sir,  the  property  and 
glory  of  magnificence  to  appear  and  stand  forward  totl. 

That  board,  which  ought  to  be  a  concern  of  builders  and  such- 
like, and  of  none  else,  is  turned  into  a  junto  of  members  of 
Parliament.  That  ollice,  too,  has  a  treasury  and  a  paymaster 
of  its  own;  and,  lest  the  arduous  allairs  of  that  important 
exchequer  should  be  too  fatiguing,  that  payma>ter  lias  a  deputy 
to  partake  his  profits  and  relieve  his  care-.  I  do  net  believe 
that,  either  now  or  in  former  times,  the  chief  managers  of  that 
board  have  made  any  profit  of  its  abuse.  It  is,  however,  no 
good  reason  that  an  abusive  establishment  should  subsist, 
because  it  is  of  as  little  private  as  of  public  advantage.  But 
this  establishment  has  the  grand  radical  fault,  the  original  sin, 
that  pervades  and  perverts  all  our  establishments,— the  appara- 
tus is  not  fitted  to  the  object,  nor  the  workmen  TO  the  work. 
Expenses  are  incurred  on  the  private  opinion  of  an  inferior 
establishment,  without  consulting  the  principal,  who  can  alone 
determine  the  proportion  which  it  ought  to  boar  to  the  other 
establishments  of  the  State,  in  the  order  of  their  relative 
importance. 

I  propose,  therefore,  along  with  the  rest,  to  pull  down  this 
whole  ill-contrived  scaffolding,  which  obstructs,  rather  than 
forwards,  our  public  works  ;  to  take  away  its  treasury  ;  to  put 
the  whole  into  the  hands  of  a  real  builder,  who  shall  not  be  a 
member  of  Parliament ;  and  to  oblige  him,  by  a  previous  esti- 
mate and  final  payment,  to  appear  twice  at  the  Treasury  before 
the  public  can  be  loaded.  The  King's  gardens  are  to  come 
under  a  similar  regulation. 

The  Mint,  though  not  a  department  of  the  household,  has  the 
same  vices.  .It  is  a  great  expense  to  the  nation,  chielly  for  the 
sake  of  members  of  Parliament.  It  has  its  officers  of  parade 
and  dignity.  It  has  its  treasury,  too.  It  is  a  sort  of  corporate 
body,  and  formerly  was  a  body  of  great  importance,— as  much 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  83 

so,  on  the  then  scale  of  things,  and  the  thon  order  of  business, 
as  the  Bank  is  at  this  clay.  It  was  the  great  centre  of  money 
transactions  and  remittances  for  our  own  and  for  other  nations, 
until  King  Charles  the  First,  among  other  arbitrary  projects 
dictated  by  despotic  necessity,  made  it  withhold  the  money  that 
lay  there  for  remittance.  That  blow  (and  happily,  too)  the  Mint 
never  recovered.  Now  it  is  no  bank,  no  remittance-shop.  The 
Mint.  Sir.  is  a  intinnfiictnrr,  and  it  is  nothing  else  ;  and  it  ought 
to  be  undertaken  upon  the  principles  of  a  manufacture,  — that 
is,  for  the  best  and  cheapest  execution,  by  a  contract  upon 
proper  securities  and  under  proper  regulations. 

The  art/lit  r;i  is  a  far  greater  object :  it  is  a  military  concern  ; 
but  having  an  allinity  and  kindred  in  its  defects  with  the  estab- 
lishments J  am  now  speaking  of,  I  think  it  best  to  speak  of  it 
along  with  them.  It  is,  I  conceive,  an  establishment  not  well 
sniteil  to  its  martial,  though  exceedingly  well  calculated  for  its 
Parliamentary,  purposes.  Here  there  is  a  treasury,  as  in  all  the 
other  inferior  departments  of  government.  Here  the  military 
is  subordinate  to  the  civil,  and  the  naval  confounded  with  the 
land  service.  The  object,  indeed,  is  much  the  same  in  both. 
.  when  the  detail  is  examined,  it  will  be  found  that  they 
had  -eparated.  For  a  reform  of  t his  office,  I  propose 

to  restore  things  to  what  (all  considerations  taken  together)  is 
their  natural  order;   to  restore  them  to  their  just  proportion, 
and  to  their  just  distribution.     I  propose,  in  this  military  con- 
:.  to  render  tin- civil  subordinate  to  the  military;  and  this 
will  annihilate1  the  greatr-t    part    of  the  expense,  and  all  the 
influence  belonging  to  the  office.     I  propose  to  send  the  military 
branch   to  the  army,   and  the  naval  to  the  Admiralty;  and  I 
intend  to  perfect  and  accomplish  the  whole  detail  (where  it  be- 
">  minute  and  complicated  for  legislature,  and  requires 
exact,  official,  military,  and  mechanical  knowledge)  by  a  corn- 
ion  of  competent  officers  in  both  departments.    I  propose 
•  •cute  by  contract  what  by  contract  can  be  executed,  and  to 
bring,  as  much  as  jos^iblc,  all  estimates  to  be  previously  ap- 

d  and  finally  to  be  paid  by  the  Treasury. 

Thus,  by  following  the  cotir>e  of  .Nature,  and  not  the  pur- 
Bof  politic^,   or  the  accumulated  patchwork  of  occasional 
."dation,  this  vast,  expensive  department  may  be  meth- 
odized, its  service  proportioned   to  its  necessities,  and  its  pay- 
ments subjected  to  the  inspection  of  the  superior  minister  of 
judge  of  it  on  the  result  of  the  total  collective 
'•ncics  of    tin  This    last   is    a  reigning    principle 

•ugh  my  whole  plan  ;  and  it  is  a  principle  which  I  hope  may 
alter  be  applied  to  oilier  pi;. 
Jjy  these  regulations  taken  together,  besides  the  three  subor- 


84  BURKE. 

dinate  treasuries  in  the  lesser  principalities,  five  other  subordi- 
nate treasuries  are  suppressed.  There  is  taken  away  the  whole 
establishment  c-f  detail  in  the  household:  the  fnusurer;  the  comp- 
troller, (for  a  comptroller  is  hardly  necessary  where  there  is  no 
treasurer;)  the  crffcrcr  (fthc  household,'  the  treasurer  of  lite-  cham- 
ber; the  master  ef  the  household ;  the  whole  board  <f  green  cJotlt;  — 
and  a  vast  number  of  subordinate  offices  in  the  department  of 
the  steward  of  the  household, — the  whole  establishment  of  the 
great  wardrobe, — the  removing  wardrobe, — the  jewel  office,— the 
robes,— the  Board  of  Works,— almost  the  whole  charge  of  the 
civil  branch  of  the  Board  of  Ordnance,  arc  taken  away.  All, these 
arrangements  together  will  be  found  to  relieve  the  nation  from 
a  vast  weight  of  influence,  without  distressing,  but  rather  by 
forwarding  every  public  service.  "When  something  of  this  kind 
is  done,  then  the  public  may  begin  to  breathe.  Under  other 
governments,  a  question  of  expense  is  only  a  question  of  econo- 
my, and  it  is  nothing  more:  with  us,  in  every  question  of  ex- 
there  is  always  a  mixture  of  constitutional  considerations. 

It  is,  Sir,  because  1  wish  to  keep  this  business  of  subordinate 
treasuries  as  much  as  I  can  together,  that  I  brought  th 
nance  office  before  you,  though  it  is  properly  a  military  depart- 
ment. For  the  same  reason  I  will  now  trouble  you  with  my 
thoughts  and  propositions  upon  two  of  the  greatest  Uitd, r-treus- 
iirics:  I  mean  the  office*  of.  paymaster  of  the  Jumi  treas- 

urer (f  the  army,  and  that  of  the  treasurer  of  the  navy.  The  former 
of  these  has  long  been  a  great  object  of  public  suspicion  and 
uneasiness.  Envy,  too,  has  had  its  share  in  the  obloquy  which 
is  cast  upon  this  office.  But  I  am  sure  that  it  has  no  sh 
all  in  the  reflections  I  shall  make  upon  it,  or  in  the  reformations 
that  I  shall  propose.  I  do  not  grudge  to  the  honourable  gentle- 
man who  at  present  holds  the  otlice  any  of  the  elYeets  of  his 
talents,  his  merit,  or  his  fortune.  lie  is  respectable  in  all  these 
particulars.  I  follow  the  constitution  of  the  oilice  without  per- 
secuting its  holder.  It  is  necessary  in  all  matters  of  public 
complaint,  where  men  frequently  feel  right  and  argue  wrong, 
to  separate  prejudice  from  reason,  and  to  be  very  sure,  in  at- 
tempting  the  redress  of  a  grievance,  that  we  hit  upon  its  real 
seat  and  its  true  nature.  "Where  there  is  an  abuse  in  oilice,  the 
first  thing  that  occurs  in  heat  is  to  censure  the  officer.  Our 
natural  disposition  leads  all  our  inquiries  rather  to  persons  than 
to  things.  But  this  prejudice  is  to  be  corrected  by  maturer 
thinking. 

Sir,  the  profits  of  the  pay  office  (as  an  oilice)  are  not  too 
in  my  opinion,  for  its  duties,  and  for  the  rank  of  the  per.-nn 
who  has  generally  held  it.    lie  has  been  generally  a  person  of 
the  highest  rank,— that  is  to  say,  a  person  of  eminence  and  con- 


SPEECH   ON   ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  85 

sideration  in  this  House.  The  great  and  the  invidious  profits 
of  the  pay  office  are  from  the  bank  that  is  held  in  it.  Accord- 
ing to  the  present  course  of  the  office,  and  according  to  the 
present  mode  of  accounting  there,  this  bank  must  necessarily 
exist  somewhere.  Money  is  a  productive  thing ;  and  when  the 
usual  time  of  its  demand  can  be  tolerably  calculated,  it  may 
with  prudence  be  safely  laid  out  to  the  profit  of  the  holder.  It 
is  on  this  calculation  that  the  business  of  banking  proceeds. 
But  no  profit  can  be  derived  from  the  use  of  money  which  does 
not  make  it  the  interest  of  the  holder  to  delay  his  account. 
The  process  of  the  Exchequer  colludes  with  this  interest.  Is 
this  collusion  from  its  want  of  rigour  and  strictness  and  great 
regularity  of  form?  The  reverse  is  true.  They  have  in  the 
Exchequer  brought  rigour  and  formalism  to  their  ultimate  per- 
fection. The  process  against  accountants  is  so  rigorous,  and  in 
a  manner  so  unjust,  that  correctives  must  from  time  to  time  be 
applied  to  it.  These  correctives  being  discretionary  upon  the 
case,  and  generally  remitted  by  the  Barons  to  the  Lords  of  the 
Treasury,  as  the  best  judges  «f  the  reasons  for  respite,  hearings 
are  had,  delays  an-  produced,  and  thus  the  extreme  of  rigour  in 
office  (as  usual  in  all  human  affairs)  leads  to  the  extreme  of 
laxity.  What  with  the  interested  delay  of  the  officer,  the  ill- 
conccived  exactness  of  the  court,  the  applications  for  dispensa- 
tions from  that  exactness,  the  revival  of  rigorous  process  after 
the  expiration  of  the  time,  and  the  new  rigours  producing  new 
applications  and  new  enlargements  of  time,  such  delays  happen 
in  the  public  accounts  that  they  can  scarcely  ever  be  closed. 

Beside^,  Sir,  they  have  a  rule  in  the  Exchequer,  which,  I  be- 
lieve, they  have  founded  upon  a  very  ancient  statute,  that  of 
the  51st  of  Henry  the  Third,  by  which  it  is  provided  that, 
"  when  a  sheriff  or  bailiff  hath  begun  his  account,  none  other 
shall  be  received  to  account,  until  he  that  wras  first  appoint- 
ed hath  clearly  accounted,  and  the  sum  has  been  received." 
"Whether  this  clause  of  that  statute  be  the  ground  of  that  ab- 
surd practice  I  am  not  quite  able  to  ascertain.  But  it  has  very 

rally  prevailed,  though  I  am  told  that  of  late  they  have  be- 
gun to  relax  from  it.    In  consequence  of  forms  adverse  to  sub- 
:ial  account,  we  have  a  long  succession  of  paymasters  and 
their  representatives  who  have  never  been  admitted  to  account, 
although  perfectly  ready  to  do  so. 

As  the  extent  of  our  wars  has  scattered  the  accountants  un- 
der the  paymaster  into  every  part  of  the  globe,  the  grand  and 

paymaster,  Death,  in  all  his  shapes,  calls  these  account- 

I  to  another  reckoning.      Death,   indeed,   domineers    over 

every  thing  but  the  forms  of  the  Exchequer.    Over  these  he 

has  no  power.    They  are  impassive  and  immortal.    The  audit 


80  BURKE. 

of  the  Exchequer,  more  severe  than  the  audit  to  which  the 
accountants  have  gone,  demands  proofs  which  in  the  nature  of 
things  are  difficult,  sometimes  impossible  to  be  had.  In  this 
respect,  too,  rigour,  as  usual,  defeats  itself.  Then  the  Ex- 
chequer never  gives  a  particu-lar  receipt,  or  clears  a  man  of  his 
account  as  far  as  it  goes.  A  final  acquittance  (or  a  quietus,  as 
they  term  it)  is  scarcely  ever  to  be  obtained.  Terrors  and 
ghosts  of  unlaid  accountants  haunt  the  houses  of  their  children 
from  generation  to  generation.  Families,  in  the  course  of  suc- 
cession, fall  into  minorities ;  the  inheritance  comes  into  the 
hands  of  females ;  and  very  perplexed  affairs  are  often  deliv- 
ered over  into  the  hands  of  negligent  guardians  and  faithless 
stewards.  So  that  the  demand  remains,  when  the  advantage  of 
the  money  is  gone,— if  ever  any  advantage  at  all  has  been  made 
of  it.  This  is  a  cause  of  infinite  distress  to  families,  and  be- 
comes a  source  of  influence  to  an  extent  that  can  scarcely  l»e 
imagined,  but  by  those  who  have  taken  some  pains  to  trace  it. 
The  mildness  of  government,  in  the  employment  of  useless  and 
dangerous  powers,  furnishes  no  reaxm  for  their  continuance. 

As  things  stand,  can  you  in  justice  (except  perhaps  in  that 
over-perfect  kind  of  justice  which  has  obtained  by  its  merits  the 
title  of  the  opposite  vice9)  insist  that  any  man  should,  by  the 
course  of  his  office,  keep  a  bank  from  whence-  he  is  to  derive  no 
advantage?  that  a  man  should  be  subject  to  demands  below, 
and  be  in  a  manner  refused  an  acquittance  above?  that  he 
should  transmit  an  original  sin  and  inheritance  of  vexation  to 
his  posterity,  without  a  power  of  compensating  himself  in  >ome 
way  or  other  for  so  perilous  a  situation?  We  know  that,  if  the 
paymaster  should  deny  himself  the  advantages  of  his  bank,  the 
public,  as  things  stand,  is  not  the  richer  for  it  by  a  single 
shilling.  This  I  thought  it  necessary  to  say  as  to  the  offeiiMve 
magnitude  of  the  profits  of  this  office,  that  we  may  proceed  in 
reformation  on  the  principles  of  reason,  and  not  on  the  feelings 
of  envy. 

The  treasurer  of  the  navy  is,  mutatis  mutandis,  in  the  same 
circumstances.  Indeed,  all  accountants  are.  Instead  of  the 
present  mode,  which  is  troublesome  to  the  officer  and  unprofit- 
able to  the  public,  I  propose  to  substitute  something  m< 
fectual  than  rigour,  which  is  the  worst  exactor  in  the  world.  I 
mean  to  remove  the  very  temptations  to  delay  ;  to  facilitate  the 
account ;  and  to  transfer  this  bank,  now  of  private  emolument, 
to  the  public.  The  Crown  will  suffer  no  wrong  at  least  from  the 
pay  offices ;  and  its  terrors  will  no  longer  reign  over  the  fami- 
lies of  those  who  hold  or  have  held  them.  I  propose  that  these 

9    Alluding  to  the  old  proverbial  saying,  Summinnjus  summa  itijuria. 


SPEECH   (W   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  87 

offices  should  be  no  longer  banks  or  treasuries,  but  mere  offices  of 
administration.  I  proposo,  first,  that  the  present  paymaster  and 
the  treasurer  of  the  navy  should  carry  into  the  Exchequer  the 
whole  body  of  the  vouchers  for  what  they  have  paid  over  to 
deputy-paymasters,  to  regimental  agents,  or  to  any  of  those  to 
whom  they  have  and  ought  to  have  paid  money.  I  propose  that 
those  vouchers  shall  be  admitted  as  actual  payments  in  their 
accounts,  and  that  the  persons  to  whom  the  money  has  been 
paid  shall  then  stand  charged  in  the  Exchequer  in  their  place. 
After  this  process,  they  shall  be  debited  or  charged  for  nothing 
but  the  money-balance  that  remains  in  their  hands. 

I  am  conscious,  Sir,  that,  if  this  balance  (which  they  could  not 
expect  to  l»e  so  suddenly  demanded  by  any  usual  process  of  the 
Exchequer)  should  now  be  exacted  all  at  once,  not  only  their 
ruin,  but  a  ruin  of  others  to  an  extent  which  I  do  not  like  to 
think  of,  but  which  I  can  well  conceive,  and  which  you  may 
well  conceive,  might  be  the  consequence.  I  told  you,  Sir,  when 
I  promised  In-fore  the  holidays  to  bring  in  this  plan,  that  I 

would  suffer  any  man  or  description  of  men  to  suffer  from 
errors  that  naturally  have  grown  out  of  the  abusive  constitu- 
tion of  ihose  otlices  whi'-h  I  propose  to  regulate.  If  I  cannot 
reform  with  equity,  I  will  not  reform  at  all. 

For  tin-  regulation  of  paM  accounts  I  shall  therefore  propose 
such  a  mode  as  men,  tempi-rate  and  prudent,  make  use  of  in 
the  management  of  their  private  affairs,  when  their  accounts 

••ion-,  perplexed,  and  of  long  standing.  I  would  there- 
Ji'iv.  itfter  their  example,  divide  (lie  public  debts  into  three 
sorts  — good,  bad,  and  doubtful.  In  looking  over  the  public 
accounts,  I  should  never  dream  of  the  blind  mode  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, which  regards  things  in  the  abstract,  and  knows  no 
difference  in  the  quality  of  it>  debts  or  the  circumstances  of  its 
debtors.  JJy  this  means  it  fatigues  itself,  it  vexes  others,  it 

•  •rushes  the  poor,  it   lets   escape  the   rich,  or,  in  a  fit  of 

mercy  or  carelessness,  declines  all  means  of  recovering  its  just 

demands.     Content  with  the  eternity  of  its  claims,  it  enjoys  its 

Epicurean  divinity  with   Epicurean  languor.     Uut  it  is  proper 

I  sorts  of  accounts  should  be  closed  some  time  or  other, — 

.  iiient,  by  composition,  or  by  oblivion.     Expedit  reipublicce 

Irtis  annul.1    Constantly  taking  along  with  me,  that  an  ex- 
treme rigour  is  sure  to  arm  every  thing  against  it,  and  at  length 
x  into  a  supine  neglect,  I  propose,  Sir,  that  even  the  best, 
soundest,  ;md  most  recent  debts  should  be  put  into  instalments, 

16  mutual  benefit  of  the  accountant  and  the  public. 
in  proportion,  however,  as  I  am  tender  oi'  the  past,  I  would 

1    It  is  the  interest  of  the  State  that  lawsuits  should  come  to  an  end. 


88  BURKE. 

be  provident  of  the  future.  All  money  that  was  formerly  im- 
prested  to  the  two  great  pay  offices  I  would  have  imprested2 
in  future  to  the  Bank  of  England.  These  offices  should  in 
future  receive  no  more  than  cash  sufficient  for  small  payments. 
Their  other  payments  ought  to  be  made  by  drafts  on  the  Bank, 
expressing  the  service.  A  check  account  from  both  offices, 
of  drafts  and  receipts,  should  be  annually  made  up  in  the 
Exchequer, — charging  the  Bank  in  account  with  the  cash  bal- 
ance, but  not  demanding  the  payment  until  there  is  an  order 
from  the  Treasury,  in  consequence  of  a  vote  of  Parliament. 

As  I  did  not,  Sir,  deny  to  the  paymaster  the  natural  profits 
of  the  bank  that  was  in  his  hands,  so  neither  would  I  to  the 
Bank  of  England.  A  share  of  that  profit  might  be  derived  to 
the  public  in  various  ways.  My  favourite  mode  is  this,  — that, 
in  compensation  for  the  use  of  this  money,  the  Bank  may  take 
upon  themselves,  first,  tJie  charge  of  the  Mint,  to  which  they  are 
already,  by  their  charter,  obliged  to  bring  in  a  great  deal  of 
bullion  annually  to  be  coined.  In  the  next  place,  I  mean  that 
they  should  take  upon  themselves  the  charge  of  rcniiUunnx  /<> 
our  troops  abroad.  This  is  a  species  of  dealing  from  which,  by 
the  same  charter,  they  arc  not  debarred.  One  and  a  quarter 
per  cent  will  be  saved  instantly  thereby  to  the  public  on  very 
large  sums  of  money.  This  will  be  at  once  a  matter  of  economy 
and  a  considerable  reduction  of  influence,  by  taking  away  a 
private  contract  of  an  expensive  nature.  If  the  Bank,  which  is 
a  great  corporation,  and  of  course  receives  the  least  profits  from 
the  money  in  their  custody,  should  of  itself  refuse  or  be  per- 
suaded to  refuse  this  offer  upon  those  terms,  I  can  speak  with 
some  confidence  that  one  at  least,  if  not  both  parts  of  the  condi- 
tion would  be  received,  and  gratefully  received,  by  several 
bankers  of  eminence.  There  is  no  banker  who  will  not  be  at 
least  as  good  security  as  any  paymaster  of  the  forces,  or  any 
treasurer  of  the  navy,  that  have  ever  been  bankers  to  the  pub- 
lic :  as  rich  at  least  as  my  Lord  Chatham,  or  my  Lord  Holland,3 
or  either  of  the  honourable  gentlemen  who  now  hold  the  ofiio-s, 
were  at  the  time  that  they  entered  into  them ;  or  as  ever  the 
whole  establishment  of  the  Mint  has  been  at  any  period. 

2  Imprested  (a  very  rare  word)  is  advanced  on  loan.    So,  in  the  case  here 
supposed,  the  government  would  advance  money  to  the  bank  for  payment  of  the 
army,  and  take  a  certain  rate  of  interest  on  the  money  while  it  remained  in  the 
hands  of  the  bank. 

3  William  Pitt  the  elder  was  for  some  time  paymaster  of  the  forces  in  the 
Telham  ministry;  as  Henry  Fox,  afterwards  Earl  of  Holland,  also  was,  under 
the  Duke  of  ^Newcastle.  It  may  be  easily  understood  that,  though  the  pa\  muster 
was  not  greatly  enriched  by  his  salary,  yet,  as  he  had  the  use  of  the  money 
while  it  lay  in  his  hands,  his  office  was  one  of  the  most  lucrative  in  the  State; 
sometimes  no  less  than  £40,000  a-year. 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  89 

These,  Sir,  are  the  outlines  of  the  plan  I  mean  to  follow  in 
suppressing  these  two  large  subordinate  treasuries.  I  now 
come  to  another  subordinate  treasury, — I  mean  that  of  the  pai/- 
master  of  the  pensions;  for  which  purpose  I  reenter  the  limits  of 
the  civil  establishment :  I  departed  from  those  limits  in  pursuit 
of  a  principle  ;  and,  following  the  same  game  in  its  doubles,  I  am 
brought  into  those  limits  again.  That  treasury  and  that  office 
I  mean  to  take  away,  and  to  transfer  the  payment  of  every 
name,  mode,  and  denomination  of  pensions  to  the  Exchequer. 
The  present  course  of  diversifying  the  same  object  can  answer 
no  good  purpose,  whatever  its  use  may  be  to  purposes  of 
another  kind.  There  are  also  other  lists  of  pensions  ;  and  I 
mean  that  they  should  all  be  hereafter  paid  at  one  and  the 
same  place.  The  whole  of  the  new  consolidated  list  I  mean 
to  reduce  to  £00,000  a-year,  which  sum  I  intend  it  shall  never 
exceed.  I  think  that  sum  will  fully  answer  as  a  reward  to  all 
real  merit  and  a  provision  for  all  real  public  charity  that  is 
ever  like  to  be  placed  upon  the  list.  If  any  merit  of  an  extraor- 
dinary nature  should  emerge  before  that  reduction  is  com- 
pleted, I  have  left  it  open  for  an  address  of  either  House  of 
Parliament  to  provide  for  the  case.  To  all  other  demands  it 
must  l>e  answered,  with  regret,  but  firmness,  "The  public  is 
poor." 

I  do  not  propose,  as  I  told  you  before  Christmas,  to  take 
away  any  pension.  I  know  that  the  public  seem  to  call  for  a 
reduction  ••!'  such  of  them  as  shall  appear  unmerited.  As  a 
censorial  act,  and  punishment  of  an  abuse,  it  might  answer 
seme  purpose.  ]>ut  this  can  make  no  part  of  ?)///  plan.  T  mean 
to  proceed  by  bill;  and  I  cannot  stop  for  such  an  inquiry.  I 
know  some  gentlemen  may  blame  me.  It  is  with  great  sub- 
ion  to  better  judgments  that  I  recommend  it  to  considera- 
tion, that  a  critical  retrospective  examination  of  the  pension 
INt,  upon  the  principle  of  merit,  can  never  serve  for  my  basis. 
Jt  cannot  answer,  according  to  my  plan,  any  effectual  purpose 
of  economy,  or  of  future  permanent  reformation.  The  process 
in  any  way  will  be  entangled  and  difficult,  and  it  will  be  in- 
ly slow  :  there  is  a  danger,  that,  if  we  turn  our  line  of 
••li,  now  directed  towards  the  grand  object,  into  this  more 
laborious  than  useful  detail  of  operations,  we  shall  never  arrive 
at  our  end. 

The  King,  Sir,  has  been  by  the  Constitution  appointed  solo 
jud'^e  of  the  merit  for  which  a  pension  is  to  be  given.  We  have 
a,  right,  undoubtedly,  to  canvass  this,  as  we  have  to  canvass 
y  act  of  government.  But  there  is  a  material  difference 
between  an  office  to  be  reformed  and  a  pension  taken  away  for 
demerit.  In  the  former  case,  no  charge  is  implied  against  the 


90  BURKE. 

holder;  in  the  latter,  his  character  is  slurred,  as  well  as  his 
lawful  emolument  affected.  The  former  process  is  against  the 
thing  ;  the  second,  against  the  person.  The  pensioner  cer- 
tainly, if  he  pleases,  has  a  right  to  stand  on  his  own  defence, 
to  plead  his  possession,  and  to  bottom  his  title  on  the  compe- 
tency of  the  Crown  to  give  him  what  he  holds.  Possessed  and 
on  the  defensive  as  he  is,  he  will  not  be  obliged  to  prove  his 
special  merit,  in  order  to  justify  the  act  of  legal  discretion,  now 
turned  into  his  property,  according  to  his  tenure.  The  very 
act,  he  will  contend,  is  a  legal  presumption,  and  an  implication 
of  his  merit.  If  this  be  so,  from  the  natural  force  of  all  legal 
presumption,  he  would  put  us  to  the  difficult  proof  that,  he  has 
no  merit  at  all.  But  other  questions  would  arise  in  the  course 
of  such  an  inquiry, —  that  is,  questions  of  the  merit  when 
weighed  against  the  proportion  of  the  reward  ;  then  the  diffi- 
culty will  be  much  great i-r. 

The  difficulty  will  not,  Sir,  I  am  afraid,  be  much  less,  if  we 
pass  to  the  person  really  guilty  in  the  question  of  an  unmerited 
pension  :  the  Minister  himself.  1  admit  that,  when  called  to 
account  for  the  execution  of  a  trust,  he  might  fairly  lie  obliged 
to  prove  the  affirmative,  and  to  state  the  merit  for  which  the 
pension  is  given,  though  on  the  pensioner  himself  such  a  pro- 
cess would  be  hard.  If  in  this  examination  we  proceed  me- 
thodically, and  so  as  to  avoid  all  suspicion  of  partiality  and 
prejudice,  we  must  take  the  pensions  in  order  of  tin 
merely  alphabetically.  The  very  lirst  pension  to  which  we 
come,  in  either  of  these  ways,  may  appear  the  most  grossly 
unmerited  of  any.  But  the  Minister  may  very  possibly  show 
that  he  knows  nothing  of  the  putting-on  this  pension;  that  it 
was  prior  in  time  to  his  administration  ;  that  the  Minister  who 
laid  it  on  is  dead  :  and  then  we  are  thrown  back  upon  the  pen- 
sioner himself,  and  plunged  into  all  our  former  difficulties. 
Abuses,  and  gross  ones,  1  doubt  not,  would  appear,  and  to  the 
correction  of  which  I  would  readily  give  my  hand  :  but  when  I 
consider  that  pensions  have  not  generally  been  affected  by  the 
revolutions  of  Ministry  ;  as  I  know  not  where  such  inquiries 
would  stop  ;  and  as  an  absence  of  merit  is  a  negative  and  loose 
thing;— one  might  be  led  to  derange  the  order  of  families 
founded  on  the  probable  continuance  of  this  kind  of  income  ; 
I  might  hurt  children;  I  might  injure  creditors;  — I  really 
think  it  the  more  prudent  course  not  to  follow  the  letter  of  the 
petitions.  If  we  fix  this  mode  of  inquiry  as  a  basis,  we  shall,  I 
fear,  end  as  Parliament  has  often  ended  under  similar  circum- 
stances, There  will  be  great  delay,  much  confusion,  much 
inequality  in  our  proceedings,  But  what  presses  me  most  of  all 
is  this,— that,  though  we  should  strike  off  all  the  unmerited 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  91 

pensions,  while  the  power  of  the  Crown  remains  unlimited,  the 
very  same  undeserving  persons  might  afterwards  return  to  the 
very  same  list ;  or,  if  they  did  not,  other  persons,  meriting  as 
little  as  they  do,  might  be  put  upon  it  to  an  undefmable 
amount.  This,  I  think,  is  the  pinch  of  the  grievance. 

For  these  reasons,  Sir,  I  am  obliged  to  waive  this  mode  of 
proceeding  as  any  part  of  my  plan.  In  a  plan  of  reformation,  it 
would  be  one  of  my  maxims,  that,  when  I  know  of  an  establish- 
ment which  may  be  subservient  to  useful  purposes,  and  which 
at  the  same  time,  from  its  discretionary  nature,  is  liable  to  a 
very  great  perversion  from  those  purposes,  I  would  limit  the 
quantity  of  the  power  that  might  be  so  abused.  For  I  am  sure  that 
in  all  such  cases  the  rewards  of  merit  will  have  very  narrow 
bounds,  and  that  partial  or  corrupt  favour  will  be  infinite. 
This  principle  is  not  arbitrary,  but  the  limitation  of  the  specific 
quantity  must  be  so  in  some  measure.  1  therefore  state  £00,000, 
leaving  it  opm  to  the  House  to  enlarge  or  contract  the  sum  as 
they  shall  see,  on  examination,  that  the  discretion  I  use  is 
scanty  or  liberal.  The  whole  account  of  the  pensions  of  all  de- 
nominations which  have  been  laid  before  us  amounts,  fora  pe- 
riod of  seven  years,  to  considerably  more  than  £100,000  a-y ear. 
To  what  the  other  lists  amount  I  know  not.  That  will  be  seen 
hen-alter.  But,  from  those  that  do  appear,  a  saving  will  accrue 
to  the  public,  at  one  time  or  other,  of  £40,000  a-year ;  and  we 
had  better,  in  my  opinion,  to  let  it  fall  in  naturally  than  to  tear 
it  crude  and  unripe  from  the  stalk. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  uneasiness  among  the  people  upon  an 
article  which  1  must  class  under  the  head  of  pensions:  I  mean 
the  ijnnt  jxittnl  n///\v.s  in  t/te  Exchequer.  They  are  in  reality  and 
substance  no  other  than  pensions,  anil  in  no  other  light  shall  I 
consider  them.  They  arc  sinecures;  they  are  always  executed 

ii.'puty;  the  duty  of  the  principal  is  as  nothing.    They  dif- 
fer, however,  from  the  pensions  on  the  list  in  some  particulars. 
They  are  held  for  life.    I  think,  with  the  public,  that  the  profits 
places  are  grown  enormous;  the  magnitude  of  tho3e 
profits,  and  the  nature  of  them,  both  call  for  reformation.     The 

ire  of  those  profits,  which  grow  out  of  the  public  distress,  is 
itself  invidious  and  grievous.  But  I  fear  that  reform  cannot  be 
immediate.  1  find  myself  under  a  restriction.  These  places, 
and  others  of  the  same  kind,  which  are  held  for  life,  have  been 
coMMilered  as  property.  They  have  been  given  as  a  provision 
lor  children  ;  they  have  been  the  subject  of  family  settlements; 
they  have  been  the  security  of  creditors.  What  the  law  re- 
red  to  me.  If  the  barriers  of  the  law  should 

roken  down,  upon  ideas  of  convenience,  even  of  public  con- 
venience, we  .shall  have  no  longer  any  thing  certain  among  us. 


92  BURKE. 

If  the  discretion  of  power  is  once  let  loose  upon  property,  we 
can  be  at  no  loss  to  determine  whose  power  and  what  discretion 
it  is  that  will  prevail  at  last.  It  would  be  wise  to  attend  upon 
the  order  of  things,  and  not  to  attempt  to  outrun  the  slow,  but 
smooth  and  even  course  of  Nature.  There  are  occasions,  I  ad- 
mit, of  public  necessity,  so  vast,  so  clear,  so  evident,  that  they 
supersede  all  laws.  Law,  being  only  made  for  the  benefit  of 
the  community,  cannot  in  any  one  of  its  parts  resist  a  demand 
which  may  comprehend  the  total  of  the  public  interest.  To  be 
sure,  no  law  can  set  itself  up  against  the  cause  and  reason  of  all 
law ;  but  such  a  case  very  rarely  happens,  and  this  most  cer- 
tainly is  not  such  a  case.  The  mere  time  of  the  reform  is  by  no 
means  worth  the  sacrifice  of  a  principle  of  law.  Individuals 
pass  like  shadows;  but  the  commonwealth  is  fixed  and  stable. 
The  difference,  therefore,  of  to-day  and  to-morrow,  which  to 
private  people  is  immense,  to  the  State  is  nothing.  At  any 
rate,  it  is  better,  if  possible,  to  reconcile  our  economy  with  our 
laws  than  to  set  them  at  variance, —  a  quarrel  which  in  the  end 
must  be  destructive  to  both. 

My  idea,  therefore,  is,  to  reduce  those  offices  to  fixed  salaries, 
as  the  present  lives  and  reversions  shall  successively  fall.  I 
mean,  that  the  office  of  the  great  auditor  (the  auditor  of  the 
receipt)  shall  be  reduced  to  £3000  a-year ;  and  the  auditors  of 
the  imprest,  and  the  rest  of  the  principal  officers,  to  fixed  aj>- 
pointments  of  £1500  a-year  each.  It  will  not  be  difficult  to  cal- 
culate the  value  of  this  fall  of  lives  to  the  public,  when  we  shall 
have  obtained  a  just  account  of  the  present  income  of  those 
places ;  and  we  shall  obtain  that  account  with  great  facility,  if 
the  present  possessors  are  not  alarmed  with  any  apprehension 
of  danger  to  their  freehold  office. 

I  know,  too,  that  it  will  be  demanded  of  me,  how  it  comes 
that,  since  I  admit  these  offices  to  be  no  better  than  pensions,  I 
chose,  after  the  principle  of  law  had  been  satisfied,  to  retain 
them  at  all.  To  this,  Sir,  I  answer  that,  conceiving  it  to  be  a 
fundamental  part  of  the  Constitution  of  this  country,  and  of  the 
reason  of  State  in  every  country,  that  there  must  be  means  of 
rewarding  public  service,  those  means  will  be  incomplete,  and 
indeed  wholly  insufficient  for  that  purpose,  if  there  should  be 
no  further  reward  for  that  service  than  the  daily  wages  it 
receives  during  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown. 

"Whoever  seriously  considers  the  excellent  argument  of  Lord 
Somers,  in  the  Bankers'  Case,  will  see  he  bottoms  himself  upon 
the  very  same  maxim  which  I  do ;  and  one  of  his  principal 
grounds  of  doctrine  for  the  alienability  of  the  domain4  in  Eng- 

4    Before  the  statute  of  Queen  Anne,  which  limited  the  alienation  of  land. 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  93 

land,  contrary  to  the  maxim  of  the  law  in  France,  lie  lays  in 
the  constitutional  policy  of  furnishing  a  permanent  reward  to 
public  service,  of  making  that  reward  the  origin  of  families,  and 
the  foundation  of  wealth  as  well  as  of  honours.  It  is  indeed 
the  only  genuine,  unadulterated  origin  of  nobility.  It  is  a 
great  principle  in  government,  a  principle  at  the  very  founda- 
tion of  the  whole  structure.  The  other  judges  who  held  tlio 
same  doctrine  went  beyond  Lord  Somers  with  regard  to  the 
remedy  which  they  thought  was  given  by  law  against  the  Crown 
upon  the  grant  of  pensions.  Indeed,  no  man  knows,  when  he 
cuts  off  the  incitements  to  a  virtuous  ambition,  and  the  just 
rewards  of  public  service,  what  infinite  mischief  he  may  do  his 
country  through  all  generations.  Such  saving  to  the  public 
may  prove  the  worst  mode  of  robbing  it.  The  Crown,  which 
has  in  its  hands  the  trust  of  the  daily  pay  for  national  service, 
ought  to  have  in  its  hands  also  the  means  for  the  repose  of  pub- 
lic labour  and  the  fixed  settlement  of  acknowledged  merit. 
There  is  a  time  when  the  weather-beaten  vessels  of  the  State 
ought  to  come  into  harbour.  They  must  at  length  have  a  re- 
treat from  the  malice  of  rivals,  from  the  perfidy  of  political 
friends,  and  the  inconstancy  of  the  people.  Many  of  the  per- 
sons  who  in  all  times  have  Tilled  the  great  offices  of  State  have 
been  younger  brothers,  who  bad  originally  little,  if  any  fortune. 
Tin  >e  ntlices  do  not  furnish  the  means  of  amassing  wealth. 
There  ought  to  be  some  power  in  the  Crown  of  granting  pen- 
sions out  of  the  reach  of  its  own  caprices.  An  entail  of  depend- 
ence is  a  bad  reward  of  merit. 

I  would  therefore  leave  to  the  Crown  the  possibility  of  confer- 
ring  some  favours  which,  whilst  they  are  received  as  a  reward, 
do  not  operate  as  corruption.  When  men  receive  obligations 
from  the  Crown,  through  the  pious  hands  of  fathers  or  of  con- 
nections  as  venerable  as  the  paternal,  the  dependences  which 
arise  from  thence  are  the  obligations  of  gratitude,  and  not  the 
letters  of  servility.  Such  ties  originate  in  virtue,  and  they  pro- 
mote it.  They  continue  men  in  those  habitudes  of  friendship, 
those  political  connections,  and  those  political  principles,  in 
which  they  began  life.  They  are  antidotes  against  a  corrupt 
levity,  instead  of  causes  of  it.  What  an  unseemly  spectacle 
would  it  afford,  what  a  disgrace  would  it  be  to  the  common- 
wealth that  suffered  such  things,  to  see  the  hopeful  son  of  a 
meritorious  Minister  begging  his  bread  at  the  door  of  that 
Tn-aMiry  from  whence  his  father  dispensed  the  economy  of  an 
empire,  and  promoted  the  happiness  and  glory  of  his  country  ! 
Why  should  he  be  obliged  to  prostrate  his  honour  and  to  sub- 
mit his  principles  at  the  levee  of  some  proud  favourite,  shoul- 
dered and  thrust  aside  by  every  impudent  pretender  on  tho 


94  BURKE. 

very  spot  where  a  few  days  before  he  saw  himself  adored, — 
obliged  to  cringe  to  the  author  of  the  calamities  of  his  House, 
and  to  kiss  the  hands  that  are  red  with  his  father's  blood  ?  — 
!N"o,  Sir,  these  things  are  unfit, —  they  are  intolerable. 

Sir,  I  shall  be  asked,  why  I  do  not  choose  to  destroy  those 
offices  which  are  pensions,  and  appoint  pensions  under  the 
direct  title  in  their  stead.  I  allow  that  in  some  cases  it  leads  to 
abuse,  to  have  things  appointed  for  one  purpose  and  applied  to 
another.  I  have  no  great  objection  to  such  a  change  ;  but  I 
do  not  think  it  quite  prudent  for  me  to  propose  it.  If  I  should 
take  away  the  present  establishment,  the  burden  of  proof  rests 
upon  me,  that  so  many  pensions,  and  no  more,  and  to  such  an 
amount  each,  and  no  more,  are  necessary  for  the  public  service. 
This  is  what  I  can  never  prove;  for  it  is  a  thing  incapable  of 
definition.  I  do  not  like  to  take  away  an  object  that  I  think 
answers  my  purpose,  in  hopes  of  getting  it  back  again  in  a  bet- 
ter shape.  People  will  bear  an  old  establishment,  when  its 
excess  is  corrected,  who  will  revolt  at  a  new  one.  I  do  not 
think  these  office-pensions  to  be  more  in  number  than  sufficient: 
but  on  that  point  the  House  will  exercise  its  discretion.  As 
to  abuse,  I  am  convinced  that  very  few  trusts  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  administration  have  admitted  less  abuse  than  this. 
Efficient  Ministers  have  been  their  own  paymasters,  it  is  true  ; 
but  their  very  partiality  has  operated  as  a  kind  of  justice,  and 
still  it  was  service  that  was  paid.  When  we  look  over  this 
Exchequer  list,  we  find  it  Tilled  with  the  descendants  of  the 
AValpoles,  of  the  Pelhams,  of  the  Townsheiuls,  —  names  to 
whom  this  country  owes  its  liberties,  and  to  whom  his  Majesty 
owes  his  crown.  It  was  in  one  of  these  lines  that  the  immense 
and  envied  employment  he  now  holds  came  to  a  certain  duke,5 
who  is  now  probably  sitting  quietly  at  a  very  good  dinner 
directly  under  us,  and  acting  hiyh  life  below  stairs,  whilst  we, 
his  masters,  are  filling  our  mouths  with  unsubstantial  sounds, 
and  talking  of  hungry  economy  over  his  head.  But  he  is  the 
elder  branch  of  an  ancient  and  decayed  House,  joined  to  and 
repaired  by  the  reward  of  services  done  by  another.  I  respect 
the  original  title,  and  the  first  purchase  of  merited  wealth  and 
honour  through  all  its  descents,  through  all  its  transfers,  and 
all  its  assignments.  May  such  fountains  never  be  dried  up  ! 
May  they  ever  How  with  their  original  purity,  and  refresh  and 
fructify  the  commonwealth  for  ages! 

Sir,  I  think  myself  bound  to  give  you  my  reasons  as  clearly 
and  as  fully  for  stopping  in  the  course  of  reformation  as  for 

5  The  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  then  had  a  dining-room  underneath  the  House 
of  Commons. 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   KEFORM.  95 

proceeding  in  it.  My  limits  are  the  rules  of  law,  the  rules  of 
policy,  and  the  service  of  the  State.  This  is  the  reason  why 
I  am  not  able  to  intermeddle  with  another  article,  which  seems 
to  be  a  specific  object  in  several  of  the  petitions  :  I  mean  the 
reduction  of  exorbitant  emoluments  to  efficient  offices.  If  I 
knew  of  any  real  efficient  office  which  did  possess  exorbitant 
emoluments,  I  should  be  extremely  desirous  of  reducing  them. 
Others  may  know  of  them  ;  I  do  not.  I  am  not  possessed  of  an 
exact  common  measure  between  real  service  and  its  reward. 
I  am  very  sure  that  States  do  sometimes  receive  services 
which  it  is  hardly  in  their  power  to  reward  according  to  their 
worth.  If  I  were  to  give  my  judgment  with  regard  to  this 
country,  I  do  not  think  the  great  efficient  offices  of  the  State  to 
be  overpaid.  The  service  of  the  public  is  a  thing  which  cannot 
be  put  to  auction,  and  struck  down  to  those  who  will  agree  to 
execute  it  the  cheapest.  When  the  proportion  between  reward 
and  service  is  our  object,  we  must  always  consider  of  what 
nature  the  service  is,  and  what  sort  of  men  they  are  that  must 
perform  it.  AYhat  is  just  payment  for  one  kind  of  labour,  and 
full  encouragement  for  one  kind  of  talents,  is  fraud  and  dis- 
couragement to  others.  Many  of  the  great  offices  have  much 
duty  to  do,  and  much  expense  of  representation  to  maintain. 
ivtary  of  State,  for  instance,  must  not  appear  sordid  in 
the  eyes  of  the  ministers  of  other  nations;  neither  ought  our 
ministers  abroad  to  appear  contemptible  in  the  Courts  where 
they  reside.  In  all  offices  of  duty,  there  is  almost  necessarily  a 
great  neglect  of  all  domestic,  affairs.  A  person  in  high  office 
can  rarely  take  a  view  of  his  family-house.  If  he  sees  that  the 
btate  takes  no  detriment,  the  State  must  see  that  his  affairs 
should  take  as  little. 

I  will  even  go  so  far  as  to  affirm  that,  if  men  were  willing  to 
serve  in  such  situations  without  salary,  they  ought  not  to  be 
permitted  to  do  it.  Ordinary  service  must  be  secured  by  the 
motives  to  ordinary  integrity.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that 
tate  which  lays  its  foundation  in  rare  and  heroic  virtues 
will  bo  sure  to  have  it-  superstructure  in  the  basest  profligacy 
and  corruption.  An  honourable  and  fair  profit  is  the  best  secu- 
.:ainst  avarice  and  rapacity  ;  as,  in  all  things  else,  a  lawful 
and  regulated  enjoyment  is  the  best  security  against  debauch- 
cry  and  excess.  For  as  wealth  is  power,  so  all  power  will  infal- 
libly draw  wealth  to  itself  by  some  means  or  other;  and  when 
men  are  left  no  way  of  ascertaining  their  profits  but  by  their 
means  of  obtaining  them,  those  means  will  be  increased  to 
infinity.  This  is  true  in  all  the  parts  of  administration,  as  well 
as  in  the  whole.  If  any  individual  were  to  decline  his  appoint- 
ments, it  might  give  an  unfair  advantage  to  ostentatious  ambi- 


96  BURKE. 

tion  over  unpretending  service ;  it  might  breed  invidious  com- 
parisons;  it  might  tend  to  destroy  whatever  little  unity  and 
agreement  may  be  found  among  Ministers.  And,  after  all, 
when  an  ambitious  man  had  run  down  his  competitors  by  a  fal- 
lacious show  of  disinterestedness,  and  fixed  himself  in  power 
by  that  means,  what  security  is  there  that  he  would  not  change 
his  course,  and  claim  as  an  indemnity  ten  times  more  than  he 
has  given  up?6 

This  rule,  like  every  other,  may  admit  its  exceptions.  When 
a  great  man  has  some  one  great  object  in  view  to  be  achieved  in 
a  given  time,  it  may  be  absolutely  necessary  for  him  to  walk 
out  of  all  the  common  roads,  and,  if  his  fortune  permits  it,  to 
hold  himself  out  as  a  splendid  example.  I  am  told  that  some- 
thing of  this  kind  is  now  doing  in  a  country  near  us.  But  this 
is  for  a  short  race,  the  training  for  a  heat  or  two,  and  not  the 
proper  preparation  for  the  regular  stages  of  a  methodical  jour- 
ney. I  am  speaking  of  establishments,  and  not  of  men. 

It  may  be  expected,  Sir,  that,  when  I  am  giving  my  reasons 
why  I  limit  myself  in  the  reduction  of  employments,  or  of  their 
profits,  I  should  say  something  of  those  which  seem  of  eminent 
inutility  in  the  State:  I  mean  the  number  of  officers  who,  by 
their  places,  are  attendant  on  the  person  of  the  King.  Consid- 
ering the  commonwealth  merely  as  such,  and  considering  those 
officers  only  as  relative  to  the  direct  purposes  of  the  State,  I 
admit  that  they  are  of  no  use  at  all.  But  there  are  many  things 
in  the  constitution  of  establishments,  which  appear  of  little 
value  on  the  first  view,  which  in  a  secondary  and  oblique  man- 
ner produce  very  material  advantages.  It  was  on  full  consid- 
eration that  I  determined  not  to  lessen  any  of  the  offices  of 
honour  about  the  Crown,  in  their  number  or  their  emoluments. 
These  emoluments,  except  in  one  or  two  cases,  do  not  much 
more  than  answer  the  charge  of  attendance.  Men  of  condition 
naturally  love  to  be  about  a  Court ;  and  women  of  condition 
love  it  much  more.  But  there  is  in  all  regular  attendance  so 
much  of  constraint,  that,  if  it  were  a  mere  charge,  without  any 
compensation,  you  would  soon  have  the  Court  deserted  by  all 
the  nobility  of  the  kingdom. 

Sir,  the  most  serious  mischiefs  would  follow  from  such  a  de- 
sertion. Kings  are  naturally  lovers  of  low  company.  They 
are  so  elevated  above  all  the  rest  of  mankind,  that  they  must 
look  upon  all  their  subjects  as  on  a  level.  They  are  rather  apt 
to  hate  than  to  love  their  nobility,  on  account  of  the  occasional 
resistance  to  their  will  which  will  be  made  by  their  virtue,  their 

C  So  J  have  read  somewhere,  in  Montaigne,  I  think,  that  supercelcstial  pro. 
fessions  are  apt  to  be  attended  or  followed  by  subterranean  practices. 


SPEECH   ON   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  97 

petulance,  or  their  pride.  It  must  indeed  be  admitted  that 
many  of  the  nobility  are  as  perfectly  willing  to  act  the  part  of 
flatterers,  tale-bearers,  parasites,  pimps,  and  buffoons,  as  any  of 
the  lowest  and  vilest  of  mankind  can  possibly  be.  But  they  are 
not  properly  qualified  for  this  object  of  their  ambition.  The 
want  of  a  regular  education,  and  early  habits,  and  some  lurking 
remains  of  their  dignity,  will  never  permit  them  to  become  a 
match  for  an  Italian  eunuch,  a  mountebank,  a  fiddler,  a  player, 
or  any  regular  practitioner  of  that  tribe.  The  Roman  emperors, 
almost  from  the  beginning,  threw  themselves  into  such  hands  ; 
and  the  mischief  increased  every  day  till  the  decline  and  final 
ruin  of  the  empire.  It  is  therefore  of  very  great  importance 
(provided  the  thing  is  not  overdone)  to  contrive  such  an  estab- 
lishment as  must,  almost  whether  a  prince  will  or  not,  bring 
into  daily  and  hourly  offices  about  his  person  a  great  number  of 
his  first  nobility ;  and  it  is  rather  an  useful  prejudice  that  gives 
them  a  pride  in  such  a  servitude.  Though  they  are  not  much 
the  better  for  a  Court,  a  Court  .will  be  much  the  better  for 
them.  I  have  therefore  not  attempted  to  reform  any  of  the 
offices  of  honour  about  the  King's  person. 

There  are  indeed  two  offices  in  his  stables  which  are  sine- 
cures :  by  the  change  of  manners,  and  indeed  by  the  nature  of 
the  thing,  they  must  be  so:  I  mean  the  several  keepers  of  buck- 
hounds,  stag-hounds,  fox-hounds,  and  harriers.  They  answer 
no  purpose  of  utility  or  of  splendour.  These  I  propose  to 
abolish.  It  is  not  proper  that  great  noblemen  should  be  keep- 
ers of  dogs,  though  they  were  the  King's  dogs. 

In  every  part  of  the  scheme,  I  have  endeavoured  that  no  pri- 
mary, and  that  even  no  secondary,  service  of  the  State  should 
suffer  by  its  frugality.  I  mean  to  touch  no  offices  but  such  as  I 
am  perfectly  sure  arc  either  of  no  use  at  all,  or  not  of  any  use  in 
the  least' assignable  proportion  to  the  burden  with  which  they 
load  the  revenues  of  the  kingdom,  and  to  the  influence  with 
which  they  oppress  the  freedom  of  Parliamentary  deliberation  ; 
for  which  reason  there  are  but  two  offices,  which  are  properly 
State  offices,  that  I  have  a  desire  to  reform. 

The  first  of  them  is  the  new  office  of  Third  Secretary  of  State, 
which  is  commonly  called  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies. 

AVe  know  that  all  the  correspondence  of  the  colonies  had 
))••(•  n,  until  within  a  few  years,  carried  on  by  the  Southern  Sec- 
retary of  State,  and  that  this  department  has  not  been  shunned 
upon  account  of  the  weight  of  its  duties,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
much  sought  on  account  of  its  patronage.  Indeed,  he  must  be 
poorly  acquainted  with  the  history  of  office  who  does  not  know 
how  very  lightly  the  American  functions  have  always  leaned 
on  the  shoulders  of  the  ministerial  Atlas  who  has  upheld  that 


98  BURKE. 

side  of  the  sphere.  Undoubtedly,  great  temper  and  judgment 
was  requisite  in  the  management  of  the  colony  politics ;  but 
the  official  detail  was  a  trifle.  Since  the  new  appointment,  a 
train  of  unfortunate  accidents  has  brought  before  us  almost  the 
whole  correspondence  of  this  favourite  secretary's  office  since 
the  first  day  of  its  establishment.  I  will  say  nothing  of  its  au- 
spicious foundation,  of  the  quality  of  its  correspondence,  or  of 
the  effects  that  have  ensued  from  it.  I  speak  merely  of  its  quan- 
titi/,  which  we  know  would  have  been  little  or  no  addition  to  the 
trouble  of  whatever  office  had  its  hands  the  fullest.  But  what 
has  been  the  real  condition  of  the  old  office  of  Secretary  of 
State  ?  Have  their  velvet  bags  and  their  red  boxes  been  so  full 
that  nothing  more  could  possibly  be  crammed  into  them? 

A  correspondence  of  a  curious  nature  has  been  lately  pub- 
lished. In  that  correspondence,  Sir,  we  find  the  opinion  of  a 
noble  person  who  is  thought  to  be  the  grand  manufacturer  of 
administrations,  and  therefore  the  best  judge  of  the  quality  of 
his  work.  He  was  of  opinion,  that  there  was  but  one  man  of 
diligence  and  industry  in  the  whole  administration:  it  was  the 
late  Earl  of  Suffolk.  The  noble  lord  lamented,  very  justly,  that 
this  statesman,  of  so  much  mental  vigour,  was  almost  wholly 
disabled  from  the  exertion  of  it  by  his  bodily  infirmities.  Lord 
Suffolk,  dead  to  the  .State  long  before  he  was  dead  to  Nature,  at 
last  paid  his  tribute  to  the  common  treasury  to  which  we  must 
all  be  taxed.  But  so  little  want  was  found  even  of  his  inten- 
tional industry,  that  the  office,  vacant  in  regard  to  its  duties 
long  before,  continued  vacant  even  in  nomination  and  appoint- 
ment for  a  year  after  his  death.  The  whole  of  the  laborious 
and  arduous  correspondence  of  this  empire  rested  solely  upon 
the  activity  and  energy  of  Lord  AVeymouth. 

It  is  therefore  demonstrable,  since  one  diligent  man  was  fully 
equal  to  the  duties  of  the  two  offices,  that  two  diligent-  men  will 
be  equal  to  the  duty  of  three.  The  business  of  the  new  office, 
which  I  shall  propose  to  you  to  suppress,  is  by  no  means  too 
much  to  be  returned  to  either  of  the  secretaries  which  remain. 
If  this  dust  in  the  balance  should  be  thought  too  heavy,  it  may 
be  divided  between  them  both,— North  America  (whether  free 
or  reduced)  to  the  Northern  Secretary,  the  West  Indies  to  the 
Southern.  It  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  say  more  upon  the 
inutility  of  this  office.  It  is  burning  daylight.7  But  before  I 
have  done,  I  shall  just  remark  that  the  history  of  this  office  is 
too  rece;it  to  suffer  us  to  forget  that  it  was  made  for  the  mere 
convenience  of  the  arrangements  of  political  intrigue,  and  not 

7  "Burning  daylight,"  that  is,  burning  candles  when  the  Sun  shines,  is  an  old 
phrase  for  wasting  time.  So  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  i.  4  :  li  Come,  we  burn  daylight, 
hoi" 


SPEECH   ON"   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  00 

for  the  service  of  the  State, — that  it  was  made  in  order  to  give 
a  colour  to  an  exorbitant  increase  of  the  civil  list,  and  in  the 
same  act  to  bring  a  new  accession  to  the  loaded  compost-heap 
of  corrupt  influence. 

There  is,  sir,  another  office  which  was  not  long  since  closely 
connected  with  this  of  the  American  Secretary,  but  has  been 
lately  separated  from  it  for  the  very  same  purpose  for  which  it 
had  been  conjoined:  I  mean  the  sole  purpose  of  all  the  separa- 
tions and  all  the  conjunctions  that  have  been  lately  made, —  a 
iob.  I  speak,  Sir,  of  the  Hoard  of  Trade  and  Plantations.  This 
Board  is  a  sort  of  temperate  bed  of  influence,  a  sort  of  gently 
ripening  hothouse,  where  eight  members  of  Parliament  receive 
salaries  of  a  thousand  a-year  for  a  certain  given  time,  in  order 
to  mature,  at  a  proper  season,  a  claim  to  two  thousand,  granted 
for  doing  less,  and  on  the  credit  of  having  toiled  so  long  in  that 
inferior,  laborious  department, 

I  have  known  that  Board,  off  and  on,  for  a  great  number  of 
years.  Both  of  its  pretended  objects  have  been  much  the  ob- 
jects of  my  study,  if  I  have  a  right  to  call  any  pursuit  of  mine 
by  so  respectable  a  name.  I  can  assure  the  House  (and  I  hope 
they  will  not  think  that  I  risk  my  little  credit  lightly)  that, 
without  moaning  to  convey  the  least  reflection  upon  any  one  of 
it-^  members,  past  or  present,  it  is  a  board  which,  if  not  mis- 
chievous, is  of  no  use  at  all. 

You  will  be  convinced,  Sir,  that  I  am  not  mistaken,  if  you 
reflect  how  generally  it  is  true,  that  commerce,  the  principal 
object  of  that  oflice,  flourishes  most  when  left  to  itself.  Inter- 
est, the  great  guide  of  commerce,  is  not  a  blind  one.  It  is  very 
well  able  to  lind  its  own  way;  and  its  necessities  are  its  best 
laws.  But  if  it  were  possible,  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  the 
young  should  direct  the  old,  and  the  inexperienced  instruct  the 
knowing,  — if  a  board  in  the  State  was  the  best  tutor  for  the 
counting-house, — if  the  desk  ought  to  read  lectures  to  the  an- 
vii,  and  the  pen  to  usurp  the  place  of  the  shuttle,  — yet  in  any 
matter  of  regulation  we  know  that  Board  must  act  with  as  little 
authority  as  skill.  The  prerogative  of  the  Crown  is  utterly 
inadequate  to  the  object;  because  all  regulations  are,  in  their 
rature,  restrictive  of  some  liberty.  In  the  reign,  indeed,  of 
Charles  the  First,  the  Council,  or  Committees  of  Council,  were 
a  moment  unoccupied  with  affairs  of  trade.  But  even 
whore  they  had  no  ill  intention,  (which  was  sometimes  the 
case,)  trade  and  manufacture  .suffered  infinitely  from  their  inju- 
dicious tampering.  But,  since  that  period,  whenever  regulation 
is  wanting,  (for  I  do  not  deny  that  sometimes  it  may  be  want- 
ing,) Parliament  constantly  sits  ;  and  Parliament  alone  is  com- 
petent to  such  regulation.  We  want  no  instruction  from  boards 


100  BURKE. 

of  trade,  or  from  any  other  board ;  and  God  forbid  we  should 
give  the  least  attention  to  their  reports!  Parliamentary  inquiry 
is  the  only  mode  of  obtaining  Parliamentary  information/ 
There  is  more  real  knowledge  to  be  obtained  by  attending  the 
detail  of  business  in  the  committees  above  stairs  than  ever  did 
come,  or  ever  will  come,  from  any  board  in  this  kingdom,  or 
from  all  of  them  together.  An  assiduous  member  of  Parlia- 
ment will  not  be  the  worse  instructed  there  for  not  being  paid 
a  thousand  a-year  for  learning  his  lesson.  And  now  that  1 
speak  of  the  committees  above  stairs,  I  must  say  that,  having 
till  lately  attended  them  a  good  deal,  I  have  observed  that  no 
description  of  members  give  so  little  attendance,  either  to  com- 
municate or  to  obtain  instruction  upon  matters  of  commerce, 
as  the  honourable  members  of  the  grave  Board  of  Trade. 
I  really  do  not  recollect  that  I  have  ever  seen  one  of  them  in 
that  sort  of  business.  Possibly  some  members  may  have  bet- 
ter memories,  and  may  call  to  mind  some  job  that  may  have  ac- 
cidentally brought  one  or  other  of  them,  at  one  time  or  other, 
to  attend  a  matter  of  commerce. 

This  Board,  Sir,  has  had  both  its  original  formation  and  its 
regeneration  in  a  job.  In  a  job  it  was  conceived,  and  in  a  job 
its  mother  brought  it  forth.  It  made  one  among  those  showy 
and  specious  impositions  which  one  of  the  experiment-making 
administrations  of  Charles  the  Second  held  out  to  delude  the 
people,  and  to  be  substituted  in  the  place  of  the  real  service 
which  they  might  expect  from  a  Parliament  annually  sitting.  It 
was  intended,  also,  to  corrupt  that  body,  whenever  it  should  be 
permitted  to  sit.  It  was  projected  in  the  year  K5G8,  and  it  contin- 
ued in  a  tottering  and  rickety  childhood  for  about  three  or  four 
years  :  for  it  died  in  the  year  KJ73,  a  babe  of  as  little  hopes  as 
ever  swelled  the  bills  of  mortality  in  the  article  of  convulsed  or 
overlaid  children  who  have  hardly  stepped  over  the  threshold 
of  life. 

It  was  buried  with  little  ceremony,  and  never  more  thought 
of  until  the  reign  of  King  William,  when,  in  the  strange  vici.oi- 
tude  of  neglect  and  vigour,  of  good  and  ill  success  that  attended 
his  wars,  in  the  year  1095,  the  trade  was  distressed  beyond  all 
example  of  former  sufferings  by  the  piracies  of  the  French 
cruisers.  This  suffering  incensed,  and,  as  it  should  seem,  very 
justly  incensed,  the  House  of  Commons.  In  this  ferment,  they 
struck,  not  only  at  the  administration,  but  at  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  the  executive  government.  They  attempted  to  form  in 
Parliament  a  board  for  the  protection  of  trade,  which,  as  they 
planned  it,  was  to  draw  to  itself  a  great  part,  if  not  the  whole, 
of  the  functions  and  powers  both  of  the  Admiralty  and  of  the 
Treasury;  and  thus,  by  a  Parliamentary  delegation  of  office  and 


SPEECH   ON   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  101 

officers,  they  threatened  absolutely  to  separate  these  depart- 
ments from  the  whole  system  of  the  executive  government,  and 
of  course  to  vest  the  most  leading  and  essential  of  its  attributes 
in  this  Board.  As  the  executive  government  was  in  a  manner 
convicted  of  a  dereliction  of  its  functions,  it  was  with  infinite 
difficulty  that  this  blow  was  warded  off  in  that  session.  There 
was  a  threat  to  renew  the  same  attempt  in  the  next.  To  pre- 
vent the  effect  of  this  manoeuvre,  the  Court  opposed  another 
manoeuvre  to  it,  and,  in  the  year  1(590,  called  into  life  this  Board 
of  Trade,  which  had  slept  since  1673. 

This,  in  a  few  words,  is  the  history  of  the  regeneration  of  the 
Board  of  Trade.  It  has  perfectly  answered  its  purposes.  It 
was  intended  to  quiet  the  minds  of  the  people,  and  to  compose 
the  ferment  that  was  then  strongly  working  in  Parliament. 
The  courtiers  were  too  happy  to  be  able  to  substitute  a  board 
which  they  knew  would  be  useless  in  the  place  of  one  that  they 
feared  would  be  dangerous.  Thus  the  Board  of  Trade  was 
reproduced  in  a  job ;  and  perhaps  it  is  the  only  instance  of  a 
public  body  which  has  never  degenerated,  but  to  this  hour  pre- 
serves all  the  health  and  vigour  of  its  primitive  institution. 

This  Board  of  Trade  and  Plantations  has  not  been  of  any  use 
to  the  colonies,  as  colonies :  so  little  of  use,  that  the  flourishing 
settlements  of  New  England,  of  Virginia,  and  of  Maryland,  and 
all  our  wealthy  colonies  in  the  West  Indies,  were  of  a  date  prior 
to  the  first  board  of  Charles  the  Second.  Pennsylvania  and 
Carolina  were  settled  during  its  dark  quarter,  in  the  interval 
!><•( \\ven  the  extinction  of  the  first  and  the  formation  of  the 
«  («.iid  board.  Two  colonies  alone  owe  their  origin  to  that 
Board.  Georgia,  which,  till  lately,  has  made  a  very  slow  prog- 
ress,—  and  never  did  make  any  progress  at  all,  until  it  had 
wholly  got  rid  of  all  the  regulations  which  the  Board  of  Trade 
had  moulded  into  its  original  constitution.  That  colony  has 
cost  the  nation  very  great  sums  of  money ;  whereas  the  colo- 
nies which  have  had  the  fortune  of  not  being  godfathered  by 
the  Board  of  Trade  never  cost  the  nation  a  shilling,  except 
what  has  been  so  properly  spent  in  losing  them.  But  the  colo- 
ny of  Georgia,  weak  as  it  was,  carried  with  it  to  the  last  hour, 
ami  carries,  even  in  its  present  dead,  pallid  visage,  the  perfect 
resemblance  of  its  parents.  It  always  had,  and  it  now  has,  an 
rxfoltUshment,  paid  by  the  public  of  England,  for  the  sake  of  the 
influence  of  the  Crown;  that  colony  having  never  been  able  or 
willing  to  take  upon  itself  the  expense  of  its  proper  government 
or  its  own  appropriated  jobs. 

The  province  of  Nova  Scotia  was  the  youngest  and  the  fa- 
vourite child  of  the  Board.  Good  God!  what  sums  the  nursing 
of  that  ill-thriven,  hard-visaged,  and  ill-favoured  brat  has  cost 


102  BURKE. 

to  this  wittol8  nation  !  Sir,  this  colony  has  stood  us  in  a  sum  of 
not  less  than  seven  hundred  thousand  pounds.  To  this  day  it 
has  made  no  repayment, — it  does  not  even  support,  those  offices 
of  expense  which  are  miscalled  its  government :  the  whole 
of  that  job  still  lies  upon  the  patient,  callous  shoulders  of  the 
people  of  England. 

Sir,  I  am  going  to  state  a  fact  to  you  that  will  serve  to  set  in 
full  sunshine  the  real  value  of  formality  and  official  superin- 
tendence. There  was  in  the  province  of  Kova  Scotia  one  little 
neglected  corner,  the  country  of  the  neutral  French;*  which, 
having  the  good-fortune  to  escape  the  fostering  care  of  both 
France  and  England,  and  to  have  been  shut  out  from  the  pro- 
tection and  regulation  of  councils  of  commerce  and  of  boards  of 
trade,  did,  in  silence,  without  notice,  and  without  assistance, 
increase  to  a  considerable  degree.  But  it  seems  our  nation  had 
more  skill  and  ability  in  destroying  than  in  settling  a  colony. 
In  the  last  war,  we  did,  in  my  opinion,  most  inhumanly,  and 
upon  pretences  that  in  the  eye  of  an  honest  man  are  not  worth 
a  farthing,  root  out  this  poor,  innocent,  deserving  people,  whom 
our  utter  inability  to  govern,  or  to  reconcile,  gave  us  no  sort  of 
right  to  extirpate.  Whatever  the  merits  of  that  extirpation 
might  have  been,  it  was  on  the  footsteps  of  a  neglected  people, 
it  was  on  the  fund  of  unconstrained  poverty,  it  was  on  the  ac- 
quisitions of  unregulated  industry,  that  any  thing  which  de- 
serves the  name  of  a  colony  in  that  province  has  been  formed. 
It  has  been  formed  by  overflowings  from  the  exuberant  popula- 
tion of  Xew  England,  and  by  emigration  from  other  part>  of 
^ova  Scotia  of  fugitives  from  the  protection  of  the  Board  of 
Trade. 

But  if  all  these  things  were  not  more  than  sufficient  to  prove 
to  you  the  inutility  of  that  expensive  establishment,  I  would 
desire  you  to  recollect,  Sir,  that  those  who  may  be  very  ready 
to  defend  it  are  very  cautious  how  they  employ  it,— cautious 
how  they  employ  it  even  in  appearance  and  pretence.  They 
arc1  afraid  they  should  lose  the  benefit  of  its  influence  in  Parlia- 
ment, if  they  seemed  to  keep  it  up  for  any  other  purpose,  ii 
ever  there  were  commercial  points  of  great  weight,  and  most 
closely  connected  with  our  dependencies,  they  are  those  which 
have  been  agitated  and  decided  in  Parliament  since  I  came  into 
it.  Which  of  the  innumerable  regulations  since  made  had  their 
origin  or  their  improvement  in  the  Board  of  Trade  ?  Did  any 

•  8  A  wittol  is,  proper!}',  a  husbaml  dishonoured  in  his  home,  and  knowing 
himself  to  be  eo,  yet  tamely  putting  up  with  it. 

9  Acadiul-,,1  suppose,  the  province  referred  to;  well  known  to  readers  of 
poetry  as  the  seene  of  Longfellow's  Evangelitie.  Acadia,  however,  or  Acadie,  is 
merely  the  old  Freueh  name  of  Xova  Scotia. 


SPEECH   ON   ECONOMICAL   REFORM".  103 

of  the  several  East  India  bills  which  have  been  successively 
produced  since  1707  originate  there  ?  Did  any  one  dream  of  re-' 
ferring  them,  or  any  part  of  them,  thither  ?  Was  anybody  so 
ridiculous  as  even  to  think  of  it  ?  If  ever  there  was  an  occasion 
on  which  the  Board  was  fit  to  be  consulted,  it  was  with  regard 
to  the  Acts  that  were  preludes  to  the  American  war,  or  attend- 
ant on  its  commencement.  Those  Acts  were  full  of  commercial 
regulations,  such  as  they  were:  the  Intercourse  Bill;  the  Pro- 
hibitory Bill ;  the  Fishery  Bill.  If  the  Board  was  not  concerned 
in  such  things,  in  what  particular  was  it  thought  fit  that  it 
should  be  concerned?  In  the  course  of  all  these  bills  through 
the  House,  I  observed  the  members  of  that  Board  to  be  remark- 
ably cautious  of  intermeddling.  They  understood  decorum 
better  ;  they  know  that  matters  of  trade  and  plantations  are  no 
business  of  theirs. 

There  were  two  very  recent  occasions,  which,  if  the  idea  of 
any  use  for  the  Board  had  not  been  extinguished  by  prescrip- 
tion, appeared  loudly  to  call  for  their  interference. 

When  commissioners  were  sent  to  pay  his  Majesty's  and  our 
dutiful  respects  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  a  part  of 
their  powers  under  the  commission  were,  it  seems,  of  a  com- 
mercial nature.  They  were  authorized,  in  the  most  ample  and 
undefined  manner,  to  form  a  commercial  treaty  with  America 
on  the  spot.  This  was  no  trivial  object.  As  the  formation  of 
such  a  treaty  would  necessarily  have  been  no  less  than  the 
breaking  up  of  our  whole  commercial  system,  and  the  giving  it 
an  cut  ire  new  form,  one  would  imagine  that  the  Board  of  Trade' 
would  have  sat  day  and  night  to  model  propositions,  which,  on 
our  side,  might  serve  JW  a  basis  to  that  treaty.  No  such  thing. 
Their  learned  leisure  was  not  in  the  least  interrupted,  though 
one  of  the  members  of  the  Board  was  a  commissioner,  and 
might,  in  mere  compliment  to  his  oiliee.  have  been  supposed  to 
make  a  show  of  deliberation  on  the  subject.  But  lie  knew  that 
his  colleagues  would  have  thought,  lie  laughed  in  their  faces, 
had  he  attempted  to  bring  any  thing  the  most  distantly  relating 
to  commerce  or  colonies,  before  Unm.  A  noble  person,  engaged 
in  the  same  commission,  and  sent  to  learn  his  commercial 
rudiments  in  New  York,  (then  under  t lie  operation  of  an  Act 
for  the  universal  prohibition  of  trade, )  was  soon  after  put  at 
the  head  of  that  Board.  This  contempt  from  the  present 
Mini-M"--  df  all  the  pretended  functions  of  that  Board,  and 
their  manner  of  breathing  into  it  its  very  soul,  of  inspiring  it 
with  it*  animating  and  presiding  principle,  puts  an  end  to  all 
dispute  concerning  their  opinion  of  the  clay  it  was  made  of. 
But  1  will  give  them  heaped  measure. 

It  was  but  the  other  day,  that  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue 


104  BURKE. 

riband  carried  up  to  the  House  of  Peers  two  Acts,  altering,  I 
think  much  for  the  better,  but  altering  in  a  great  degree,  our 
whole  commercial  system  :  those  Acts,  I  mean,  for  giving  a 
free  trade  to  Ireland  in  woollens,  and  in  all  things  else,  with 
independent  nations,  and  giving  them  an  equal  trade  to  our 
own  colonies.  Here,  too,  the  novelty  of  this  great,  but  arduous 
and  critical  improvement  of  system,  would  make  you  conceive 
that  the  anxious  solicitude  of  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  riband 
would  have  wholly  destroyed  the  plan  of  summer  recreation 
of  that  Board,  by  references  to  examine,  compare,  and  digest 
matters  for  Parliament.  You  would  imagine  that  Irish  com- 
missioners of  customs,  and  English  commissioners  of  customs, 
and  commissioners  of  excise,  that  merchants  and  manufacturers 
of  every  denomination,  had  daily  crowded  their  outer  rooms. 
Nil  lioruin.  The  perpetual  virtual  adjournment,  and  the  un- 
broken sitting  vacation  of  that  Board,  was  no  more  disturbed  by 
the  Irish  than  by  the  plantation  commerce,  or  any  other  com- 
merce. The  same  matter  made  a  large  part  of  the  business 
which  occupied  the  House  for  two  sessions  before  ;  and  as  our 
Ministers  were  not  then  mellowed  by  the  mild,  emollient,  and 
engaging  blandishments  of  our  dear  sister1  into  all  the  tender- 
ness of  unqualified  surrender,  the  bounds  and  limits  of  a  re- 
strained benefit  naturally  required  much  detailed  management 
and  positive  regulation.  But  neither  the  qualified  propositions 
which  were  received,  nor  those  other  qualified  propositions 
which  were  rejected  by  Ministers,  were  the  least  concern  of 
theirs,  nor  were  they  ever  thought  of  in  the  business. 

It  is  therefore,  Sir,  on  the  opinion  of  Parliament,  on  the  opin- 
ion of  the  Ministers,  and  even  on  their  own  opinion  of  their 
in  utility,  that  I  shall  propose  to  you  to  suppress  the  Board  <  f 
Trade  and  Plantations,  and  to  recommit  all  its  business  to  the 
Council,  from  whence  it  was  very  improvidently  taken ;  where 
that  business  (whatever  it  might  be)  was  much  better  done, 
and  without  any  expense ;  and  indeed  where  in  effect  it  may  all 
come  at  last.  Almost  all  that  deserves  the  name  of  business 
there  is  the  reference  of  the  plantation  Acts  to  the  opinion  of 
gentlemen  of  the  law.  But  all  this  may  be  done,  as  the  Irish 
business  of  the  same  nature  has  always  been  done,  by  the 
Council,  and  with  a  reference  to  the  Attorney  and  Solicitor 
General. 

There  are  some  regulations  in  the  household,  relative  to  the 
officers  of  the  yeomen  of  the  guards,  and  the  oliicers  and  band 

1  Ireland  is  the  "  dear  sister"  meant,  and  the  "blandishments  "  she  had  used 
were  open  revolt,  a  Avhirhvind  of  public  commotion,  the  people  demanding  re. 
lief  with  arms  in  their  hands.  The  matter  is  lully  discussed  in  Durke's  Speech 
to  the  Electors  of  Bristol. 


SPEECH   ON   ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  105 

of  gentlemen  pensioners,  which  I  shall  likewise  submit  to  your 
consideration,  for  the  purpose  of  regulating  establishments 
which  at  present  are  much  abused. 

I  have  now  finished  all  that  for  the  present  I  shall  trouble 
you  with  on  the  plan  of  reduction.  I  mean  next  to  propose  to 
you  the  plan  of  arranyement,  by  which  I  mean  to  appropriate 
and  fix  the  civil-list  money  to  its  several  services  according  to 
their  nature  :  for  I  am  thoroughly  sensible  that,  if  a  discretion 
wholly  arbitrary  can  be  exercised  over  the  civil-list  revenue, 
although  the  most  effectual  methods  may  be  taken  to  prevent 
the  inferior  departments  from  exceeding  their  bounds,  the  plan 
of  reformation  will  still  be  left  very  imperfect.  It  will  not,  in 
my  opinion,  be  safe  to  admit  an  entirely  arbitrary  discretion 
even  in  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  himself ;  it  will  not  be 
safe  to  leave  with  him  a  power  of  diverting  the  public  money 
from  its  proper  objects,  of  paying  it  in  an  irregular  course,  or  of 
inverting  perhaps  the  order  of  time,  dictated  by  the  proportion 
of  value,  which  ought  to  regulate  his  application  of  payment  to 
service. 

I  am  sensible,  too,  that  the  very  operation  of  a  plan  of  econo- 
my which  tends  to  exonerate  the  civil  list  of  expensive  estab- 
lishments may  in  some  sort  defeat  the  capital  end  we  have  in 
view,  — the  independence  of  Parliament ;  and  that,  in  removing 
the  public  and  ostensible  means  of  intluence,  we  may  increase 
the  fund  of  private  corruption.  I  have  thought  of  some  meth- 
ods to  prevent  an  abuse  of  surplus  cash  under  discretionary 
application, —  I  mean  the  heads  of  secret  service,  special  service, 
various  payments,  and  the  like, — which  I  hope  will  answer,  and 
which  in  due  time  I  shall  lay  before  you.  Where  I  am  unable 
to  limit  the  quantity  of  the  sums  to  be  applied,  by  reason  of  the 
uncertain  quantity  of  the  service,  I  endeavour  to  confine  it  to 
its  line,  to  secure  an  indefinite  application  to  the  definite  service 
to  which  it  belongs,— not  to  stop  the  progress  of  expense  in  its 
line,  but  to  confine  it  to  that  line  in  which  it  professes  to  move. 

Dut  that  part  of  my  plan,  Sir,  upon  which  I  principally  rest, 
that  on  which  I  rely  for  the  purpose  of  binding  up  and  securing 
the  whole,  is  to  establish  a  fixed  and  invariable  order  in  all  its 
p:iyinonts,  which  it  shall  not  be  permitted  to  the  First  Lord  of 
the  Treasury,  upon  any  pretence  whatsoever,  to  depart  from. 
I  therefore  divide  the  civil-list  payments  into  nine  classes,  put- 
ting  cadi  class  forward  according  to  the  importance  or  justice 
of  th<-  demand,  and  to  the  inability  of  the  persons  entitled  to 
enforce,  their  pretensions:  that  is,  to  put  those  first  who  have 
tho  most  efficient  offices,  or  claim  the  justest  debts,  and  at  the 
same  time,  from  the  character  of  that  description  of  men,  from 
the  retiredness  or  the  remoteness  of  their  situation,  or  from 


106  BURKE. 

their  want  of  weight  and  power  to  enforce  their  pretensions,  or 
from  their  being  entirely  subject  to  the  power  of  a  Minister, 
without  any  reciprocal  power  of  awing,  ought  to  be  the  most 
considered,  and  arc  the  most  likely  to  be  neglected, — all  these  I 
place  in  the  highest  classes :  I  place  in  the  lowest  those  whose 
functions  are  of  the  least  importance,  but  whose  persons  or 
rank  are  often  of  the  greatest  power  and  influence. 

In  the  first  class  I  place  the  j"<lyes,  as  of  the  first  importance. 
It  is  the  public  justice  that  holds  the  community  together  ;  the 
ease,  therefore,  and  independence  of  the  judges  ought  to  super- 
sede all  other  considerations,  and  they  ought  to  be  the  very 
last  to  feel  the  necessities  of  the  State,  or  to  be  obliged  either 
to  court  or  bully  a  Minister  for  their  rights;  they  ought  to  be 
as  weak  solicitors  on  their  own  tlnndmix  as  strenuous  assertors  of 
the  rights  and  liberties  of  others.  The  judges  are,  or  ought  to 
be,  of  a  reserved  and  retired  character,  and  wholly  unconnected 
with  the  political  world. 

In  the  second  class  I  place  the  foreign  ministers.  The  judges 
are  the  links  of  our  connections  with  one  another;  the  foreign 
ministers  are  the  links  of  our  connection  wi£h  other  nations. 
They  are  not  upon  the  spot  to  demand  payment,  and  are  there- 
fore the  most  likely  to  be,  as  in  fact  they  have  sometimes  been, 
entirely  neglected,  to  the  great  disgrace  and  perhaps  the  great 
detriment  of  the  nation. 

In  the  third  class  I  would  bring  all  the  tradesmen  who  supply 
the  Crown  by  contract  or  otherwise. 

In  the  fourth  class  I  place  all  the  domestic  servants  of  the 
King,  and  all  persons  in  efficient  offices  whose  salaries  do  not 
exceed  two  hundred  pounds  a-year. 

In  the  fifth,  upon  account  of  honour,  which  ought  to  give 
place  to  nothing  but  charity  and  rigid  justice,  I  would  place  the 
pensions  and  allowances  of  his  Majesty's  royal  family,  compre- 
hending of  course  the  Queen,  together  with  the  stated  allow- 
ance of  the  privy  purse. 

In  the  sixth  class  I  place  those  efficient  offices  of  duty  whose 
salaries  may  exceed  the  sum  of  two  hundred  pounds  a-year. 

In  the  seventh  class,  that  mixed  mass,  the  whole  pension  list. 

In  the  eighth,  the  offices  of  honour  about  the  King. 

In  the  ninth,  and  the  last  of  all,  the  salaries  and  pensions  of 
the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  himself,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  and  the  other  Commissioners  of  the  Treasury. 

If,  by  any  possible  mismanagement  of  that  part  of  the  revenue 
which  is  left  at  discretion,  or  by  any  other  mode  of  prodigality, 
cash  should  be  deficient  for  the  payment  of  the  lowest  d 
I  propose  that  the  amount  of  those  salaries  where  the  deficiency 
may  happen  to  fall  shall  not  be  carried  as  debt  to  the  account 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  107 

of  the  succeeding  year,  but  that  it  shall  be  entirely  lapsed, 
sunk,  and  lost ;  so  that  government  will  be  enabled  to  start  in 
the  race  of  every  new  year  wholly  unloaded,  fresh  in  wind  and 
vigour.  Hereafter  no  civil-list  debt  can  ever  come  upon  the 
public.  And  those  who  do  not  consider  this  as  saving,  because 
it  is  not  a  certain  sum,  do  not' ground  their  calculations  of  the 
future  on  their  experience  of  the  past. 

I  know  of  no  mode  of  preserving  the  effectual  execution  of 
any  duty,  but  to  make  it  the  direct  interest  of  the  executive  offi- 
cer that  it  shall  be  faithfully  performed.  Assuming,  then,  that 
the  present  vast  allowance  to  the  civil  list  is  perfectly  adequate 
to  all  its  purposes,  if  there  should  be  any  failure,  it  must  be 
from  the  mismanagement  or  neglect  of  the  First  Commissioner 
of  the  Treasury  ;  since,  upon  the  proposed  plan,  there  can  be  no 
expense  of  any  consequence  which  he  is  not  himself  previously 
to  authorize  and  finally  to  control.  It  is  therefore  just,  as  well 
as  politic,  that  the  loss  should  attach  upon  the  delinquency. 

If  the  failure  from  the  delinquency  should  be  very  consider- 
able, it  will  fall  on  the  class  directly  above  the  First  Lord  of 
the  Treasury,  a<  well  as  upon  himself  and  his  board.  It  will 
fall,  as  it  ought  to  fall,  upon  offices  of  no  primary  importance  ia 
bate;  but  then  it  will  fall  upon  persons  whom  it  will  be 
a  matter  of  no  slight  importance  for  a  Minister  to  provoke:  it 
will  fall  upon  persons  of  the  first  funk  and  consequence  in  the 
kingdom, —  upon  those  who  are  nearest  to  the  King,  and  fre- 
quently have  a  more  interior  credit  with  him  than  the  Minister 
himself.  It  will  fall  upon  masters  of  the  horse,  upon  lord 
chamberlains,  upon  lord  stewards,  upon  grooms  of  the  stole, 
and  lords  of  the  bedchamber.  The  household  troops  form  an 
army,  who  will  be  ready  to  mutiny  for  want  of  pay,  and  whose. 
mutiny  will  be  rcaJJ;/  dreadful  to  a  commander-in-chicf.  A 
rebellion  of  the  thirteen  lords  of  the  bedchamber  would  be  far 
limn-  t'-rrible  to  a  Minister,  and  would  probably  affect  his  power 
more  to  the  quick,  than  a  revolt  of  thirteen  colonies.  What  an 
uproar  such  an  event  would  create  at  Court  I  What  petition*, 
and  fHiintiitn-x,  and  tixxnritifiniix,  would  it  not  produce  !  Bless 
me!  what  a  clattering  of  white  sticks  and  yellow  sticks  would 
be  about  his  head  !  what  a  storm  of  gold  keys  would  ily  about 
(lie  ears  of  the  .Minister!  what  a  shower  of  Georges,  and 
tin-ties,  and  medals,  and  collars  of  eSSCfl1  would  assail  him  at 
his  lir>t  entrance  into  the  antechamber,  after  an,  insolvent, 
( 'hristmas  quarter  !  — a  tumult  which  could  not  be  appeased  by 
all  the  harmony  of  the  new  year's  ode.  Rebellion  it  is  certain 

i  r"H;ir-  of  esses  arc  said  to  be  so  called,  from  the  links  of  the  chain-work  be- 
in-  shaped  like  the  letter  S. 


108  BUKKE. 

there  would  be ;  and  rebellion  may  not  now  indeed  be  so  criti- 
cal an  event  to  those  who  engage  in  it,  since  its  price  is  so  cor- 
rectly ascertained  at  just  a  thousand  pounds. 

Sir,  this  classing,  in  my  opinion,  is  a  serious  and  solid  security 
for  the  performance  of  a  Minister's  duty.  Lord  Coke  says  that 
the  staff  was  put  into  the  Treasurer's  hand  to  enable  him  to 
support  himself  when  there  was  no  money  in  the  Exchequer, 
and  to  beat  away  importunate  solicitors.  The  method  which  I 
propose  would  hinder  him  from  the  necessity  of  such  a  broken 
staff  to  lean  on,  or  such  a  miserable  weapon  for  repulsing  the 
demands  of  worthless  suitors,  who,  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue 
riband  knows,  will  bear  many  hard  blows  on  the  head,  and  many 
other  indignities,  before  they  are  driven  from  the  Treasury.  In 
this  plan,  he  is  furnished  with  an  answer  to  all  their  importu- 
nity,—  an  answer  far  more  conclusive  than  if  he  had  knocked 
them  down  with  his  staff :  "Sir,  (or  my  Lord,)  you  are  calling 
for  my  own  salary, —  Sir,  you  are  calling  for  the  appointments 
of  my  colleagues  who  sit  about  me  in  ofiice, —  Sir,  you  are  going 
to  excite  a  mutiny  at  Court  against  me,— you  are  going  to 
estrange  his  Majesty's  confidence  from  me,  through  the  cham- 
berlain, or  the  master  of  the  horse,  or  the  groom  of  the  stole." 
.  As  things  now  stand,  every  man,  in  proportion  to  his  conse- 
quence at  Court,  tends  to  add  to  the  expenses  of  the  civil  list, 
by  all  manner  of  jobs,  if  not  for  himself,  yet  for  his  dependents. 
When  the  new  plan  is  established,  those  who  are  now  suitors 
for  jobs  will  become  the  most  strenuous  opposers  of  them. 
They  will  have  a  common  interest  with  the  Minister  in  public 
economy.  Every  class,  as  it  stands  low,  will  become  security 
for  the  payment  of  the  preceding  class ;  and  thus  the  persons 
whose  insignificant  services  defraud  those  that  are  useful 
would  then  become  interested  in  the4r  payment.  Then  the 
powerful,  instead  of  oppressing,  would  be  obliged  to  support 
the  weak  ;  and  idleness  would  become  concerned  in  the  reward 
of  industry.  The  whole  fabric  of  the  civil  economy  would 
become  compact  and  connected  in  all  its  parts ;  it  would  be 
formed  into  a  well-organized  body,  where  every  member  con- 
tributes to  the  support  of  the  whole,  and  where  even  the  la/y 
stomach  secures  the  vigour  of  the  active  arm. 

This  plan,  I  really  flatter  myself,  is  laid  not  in  official  for- 
mality, nor  in  airy  speculation,  but  in  real  life,  and  in  human 
nature,  in  what  "comes  home"  (as  Bacon  says)  "to  the  busi- 
ness and  bosoms  of  men."  You  have  now,  Sir,  before  you,  the 
whole  of  my  scheme,  as  far  as  I  have  digested  it  into  a  form 
that  might  be  in  any  respect  worthy  of  your  consideration.  I 
intend  to  lay  it  before  you  in  five  bills.  The  plan  consists, 
indeed,  of  many  parts  ;  but  they  stand  upon  a  few  plain  princi- 


SPEECH   OX   ECONOMICAL   REFORM.  109 

pies.  It  is  a  plan  which  takes  nothing  from  the  civil  list  with- 
out discharging  it  of  a  burden  equal  to  the  sum  carried  to  the 
public  service.  It  weakens  no  one  function  necessary  to  gov- 
ernment ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  by  appropriating  supply  to 
service,  it  gives  it  greater  vigour.  It  provides  the  means  of 
order  and  foresight  to  a  minister  of  finance,  which  may  always 
keep  all  the  objects  of  his  office,  and  their  state,  condition,  and 
relations,  distinctly  before  him.  It  brings  forward  accounts 
without  harrying  and  distressing  the  accountants  :  whilst  it 
provides  for  public  convenience,  it  regards  private  rights.  It 
extinguishes  secret  corruption  almost  to  the  possibility  of  its 
existence.  It  destroys  direct  and  visible  influence  equal  to  the 
ofiicvs  of  at  least  fifty  members  of  Parliament.  Lastly,  it 
prevents  the  provision  for  his  Majesty's  children  from  being 
diverted  to  the  political  purposes  of  his  Minister. 

Those  are  the  points  on  which  I  rely  for  the  merit  of  the 
plan.  I  pursue  economy  in  a  secondary  view,  and  only  as  it  is 
connected  with  these  great  objects.  I  am  persuaded,  that  even 
for  supply  this  scheme  will  be  far  from  unfruitful,  if  it  be  exe- 
cuted to  the  extent  I  propose  it.  I  think  it  will  give  to  the 
public,  at  its  periods,  two  or  three  hundred  thousand  pounds  a 
year ;  if  not,  it  will  give  them  a  system  of  economy,  which  is 
itself  a  great  revenue.  It  gives  me  no  little  pride  and  satisfac-- 
tion  to  lind  that  the  principles  of  my  proceedings  are  in  many 
resprris  the  very  same  with  those  which  arc  now  pursued  in 
the  plans  of  the  French  minister  of  finance.  I  am  sure  that  I 
lay  before  you  a  scheme  easy  and  practicable  in  all  its  parts.  I 
know  it  is  common  at  once  to  applaud  and  to  reject  all  attempts 
of  this  nature.  I  know  it  is  common  for  men  to  say  that  such 
and  such  things  are  perfectly  right,  very  desirable, — but  that, 
unfortunately,  they  are  not  practicable.  O,  no,  Sir,  1  no  1 
Those  things  which  are  riot  practicable  are  not  desirable. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  world  really  beneficial  that  does  not 
]:<•  within  the  reach  of  an  informed  understanding  and  a  we!l- 
diivi  lei  pursuit.  There  is  nothing  that  God  has  judged  good 
for  us  that  lie  has  not  given  us  means  to  accomplish,  both  in 
the  natural  and  the  moral  world.  If  we  cry,  like  children,  for 
the  Moon,  like  children  we  must  cry  on. 

We  must  follow  the  nature  of  our  affairs,  and  conform  our- 
to  our  situation.  If  we  do,  our  objects  are  plain  and 
f« impassable.  Why  should  we  resolve  to  do  nothing,  because 
what  I  propose  to  you  may  not  be  the  exact  demand  of  tho 
petition,  when  we  are  far  from  resolved  to  comply  even  with 
what  evidently  is  so?  Does  this  sort  of  chicanery  become  us? 
The  people  are  the  masters.  They  have  only  to  express  their 
wants  at  large  and  in  gross.  We  are  the  expert  artists,  we  are 


110  BUKKE. 

the  skillful  workmen,  to  shape  their  desires  into  perfect  form, 
and  to  fit  the  utensil  to  the  use.  They  are  the  sufferers,  they 
tell  the  symptoms  of  the  complaint ;  but  we  know  the  exact 
seat  of  the  disease,  and  how  to  apply  the  remedy  according  to 
the  rules  of  art.  How  shocking  would  it  be  to  see  us  pervert 
our  skill  into  a  sinister  and  servile  dexterity,  for  the  purpose 
of  evading  our  duty,  and  defrauding  our  employers,  who  are 
our  natural  lords,  of  the  object  of  their  just  expectations  !  I 
think  the  whole  not  only  practicable,  but  practicable  in  a  very 
short  time.  If  we  are  in  earnest  about  it,  and  if  we  exert  that 
industry  and  those  talents  in  forwarding  the  work  which,  I  am 
afraid,  may  be  exerted  in  impeding  it,  I  engage  that  the  whole 
may  be  put  in  complete  execution  within  a  year.  For  my  own 
part,  I  have  very  little  to  recommend  me  for  this  or  for  any 
task,  but  a  kind  of  earnest  and  anxious  perseverance  of  mind, 
which,  with  all  its  good  and  all  its  evil  effects,  is  moulded  into 
my  constitution.  I  faithfully  engage  to  the  House,  if  they 
choose  to  appoint  me  to  any  part  in  the  execution  of  this  work, 
(which,  when  they  have  made  it  theirs  by  the  improvements  of 
their  wisdom,  will  be  worthy  of  the  able  assistance  they  may 
give  me,)  that  by  night  and  by  day,  in  town  or  in  country,  at 
the  desk  or  in  the  forest,  I  will,  without  regard  to  convenience, 
ease,  or  pleasure,  devote  myself  to  their  service,  not  expecting 
or  admitting  any  reward  whatsoever.  I  owe  to  this  country  my 
labour,  which  is  my  all ;  and  I  owe  to  it  ten  times  more  indus- 
try, if  ten  times  more  I  could  exert.  After  all,  I  shall  be  an 
unprofitable  servant. 

At  the  same  time,  if  I  am  able,  and  if  I  shall  be  permitted, 
I  will  lend  an  humble  helping  hand  to  any  other  good  work 
which  is  going  on.  I  have  not,  Sir,  the  frantic  presumption  to 
suppose  that  this  plan  contains  in  it  the  whole  of  what  the 
public  has  a  right  to  expect  in  the  great  work  of  reformation 
they  call  for.  Indeed,  it  falls  infinitely  short  of  it.  It  falls 
short  even  of  my  own  ideas.  I  have  some  thoughts,  not  yet 
fully  ripened,  relative  to  a  reform  in  the  customs  and  excise, 
as  well  as  in  some  other  branches  of  financial  administration. 
There  are  other  things,  too,  which  form  essential  parts  in  u 
great  plan  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  the  independence  of 
Parliament.  The  contractors'  bill  of  last  year  it  is  tit  to  revive  ; 
and  I  rejoice  that  it  is  in  better  hands  than  mine.  The  bill  for 
suspending  the  votes  of  custom-house  officers,  brought  into 
Parliament  several  years  ago  by  one  of  our  worthiest  and 
wisest  members,3 — would  to  God  we  could  along  with  the  plan 
revive  the  person  who  designed  it  I  —  but  a  man  of  very  real 

3  This  was  William  Dowdestvell,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  1765.  See 
page  43,  note  9. 


SPEECH   O.X   ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  Ill 

integrity,  honour,  and  ability  will  be  found  to  take  his  place, 
and  to  carry  his  idea  into  full  execution.  You  all  see  how 
necessary  it  is  to  review  our  military  expenses  for  some  years 
past,  and,  if  possible,  to  bind  up  and  close  that  bleeding  artery 
of  profusion  ;  but  that  business  also,  I  have  reason  to  hope, 
will  be  undertaken  by  abilities  that  are  fully  adequate  to  it. 
Something  must  be  devised  (if  possible)  to  check  the  ruinous 
expense  of  elections. 

Sir,  all  or  most  of  these  things  must  be  done.  Every  one 
must  take  his  part.  If  we  should  be  able,  by  dexterity,  or 
power,  or  intrigue,  to  disappoint  the  expectations,  of  our  con- 
stituents, what  will  it  avail  us?  AVe  shall  never  be  strong  or 
artful  enough  to  parry,  or  to  put  by,  the  irresistible  demands  of 
our  situation.  That  situation  calls  upon  us,  and  upon  our  con- 
stituents too,  with  a  voice  which  will  be  heard.  I  am  sure  no 
man  is  more  zealously  attached  than  I  am  to  the  privileges  of 
this  House,  particularly  in  regard  to  the  exclusive  management 
of  money.  The  Lords  have  no  right  to  the  disposition,  in  any 
sense,  of  the  public  purse  ;  but  they  have  gone  further  in  self- 
denial  than  our  utmost  jealousy  could  have  required.  A  power 
of  examining  account-,  to  eensure.  correct,  and  punish,  we 
never,  that  1  know  of,  have  thought  of  denying  to  the  House  of 
Lords.  It  is  something  more  than  a  century  since  we  voted 

that  body  useless:    lliev    have    now  voted   thelU^'lveS   SO.     The 

whole  hope  of  reformation  is  at  length  ca^t  upon  i»;  and  let  us 
not  deceive  the  nation,  vhieh  does  us  the  honour  to  hope  every 
thing  from  our  virtue.  If  nil  the  nation  art-  not  equally  forward 
to  press  this  duty  upon  us  yet  lie  assured  that  they  all  equally 
expect  we  should  perform  it.  The  respectful  silence  of  those; 
who  wait  upon  your  pleasure  ought  to  be  as  powerful  with  you 
as  the  call  of  those  who  require  your  service  as  their  right. 
Some,  without  doors,  affect  to  feel  hurt  for  your  dignity,  be- 
they  suppose,  that  menaces  are  held  out  to  you.  Justify 
;<>o<l  opinion  by  showing  that  no  menaces  are  necessary 
to  stimulate  \outoyourduty.  But,  Sir,  whilst  we  may  sympa- 
thize with  those  in  one  point  who  sympathize  with  us  in  an- 
other, we  ought  to  attend  no  less  to  those  who  approach  us  like 
men,  and  who,  in  the  guise  of  petitioners,  speak  to  us  in  the 
tone  of  a  concealed  authority.  It  is  not  wise  to  force  them  to 
out  more  plainly  than  they  plainly  mean.— But  the  peti- 
tioners are  violent?  l>e  it  so.  Those  who  are  least  anxious 
about  your  conduct  are  not tln»e  that  love  you  most.  Moderate 
affection  and  satiated  enjoyment  are  cold  and  respectful;  but 
an  ardent  and  injured  pa»ion  is  tempered  up  with  wrath,  and 
grief,  and  shame,  and  conscious  worth,  and  the  maddening 
sense  of  violated  right.  A  jealous  love  lights  his  torch  from 


112  BtTRKE. 

the  firebrands  of  the  furies.  They  who  call  upon  you  to  belong 
wholly  to  the  people  are  those  who  wish  you  to  return  to  your 
proper  home, — to  the  sphere  of  your  duty,  to  the  post  of  your 
honour,  to  the  mansion-house  of  all  genuine,  serene,  and  solid 
satisfaction.  We  have  furnished  to  the  people  of  England  (in- 
deed we  have)  some  real  cause  of  jealousy.  Let  us  leave  that 
sort  of  company  which,  if  it  does  not  destroy  our  innocence, 
pollutes  our  honour ;  let  us  free  ourselves  at  once  from  every 
thing  that  can  increase  their  suspicions  and  inflame  their  just 
resentment ;  let  us  cast  away  from  us,  with  a  generous  scorn, 
all  the  love-tokens  and  symbols  that  we  have  been  vain  and 
light  enough  to  accept, —  all  the  bracelets,  and  snuff-boxes,  and 
miniature  pictures,  and  hair-devices,  and  all  the  other  adulterous 
trinkets  that  are  the  pledges  of  our  alienation  and  the  monu- 
ments of  our  shame.  Let  us  return  to  our  legitimate  home,  and 
all  jars  and  all  quarrels  will  be  lost  in  embraces.  Let  the  Com- 
mons in  Parliament  assembled  be  one  and  the  same  thing  with 
the  commons  at  large.  The  distinctions  that  are  made  to  sep- 
arate us  are  unnatural  and  wicked  contrivances.  Let  us  iden- 
tify, let  us  incorporate  ourselves  with  the  people.  Let  us  cut  all 
the  cables  and  snap  the  chains  which  tie  us  to  an  unfaithful 
shore,  and  enter  the  friendly  harbour  that  shoots  far  out  into 
the  main  its  moles  and  jetties  to  receive  us.  "War  with  the 
world,  and  peace  with  our  constituents."  Be  this  our  motto, 
and  our  principle.  Then  indeed  we  shall  be  truly  great.  Re- 
specting ourselves,  we  shall  be  respected  by  the  world.  At 
present  all  is  troubled,  and  cloudy,  and  distracted,  and  full  of 
anger  and  turbulence,  both  abroad  and  at  home ;  but  the  air 
may  be  cleared  by  this  storm,  and  light  and  fertility  may  follow 
it.  Let  us  give  a  faithful  pledge  to  the  people,  that  we  honour 
indeed  the  Crown,  but  that  we  belong  to  them  ;  that  we  are 
their  auxiliaries,  and  not  their  task-masters,  —  the  fell<>\v- 
labourers  in  the  same  vineyard,  not  lording  over  their  rights, 
but  helpers  of  their  joy  ;  that  to  tax  them  is  a  grievance  to  our- 
selves, but  to  cut  off  from  our  enjoyments  to  forward  theirs  is 
the  highest  gratification  we  are  capable  of  receiving.  I  feel, 
with  comfort,  that  we  are  all  warmed  with  these  sentiments, 
and  while  we  are  thus  warm,  I  wish  we  may  go  directly  and 
with  a  cheerful  heart  to  this  salutary  work. 

Sir,  I  move  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill,  "For  the  better  regu- 
lation of  his  Majesty's  civil  establishments,  and  of  certain  pub- 
lic offices ;  for  the  limitation  of  pensions,  and  the  suppression 
of  sundry  useless,  expensive,  and  inconvenient  places,  and  for 
applying  the  moneys  saved  thereby  to  the  public  service."  * 

4    This  motion  being  seconded  by  Fox,  Lord  North  thereupon  rose  and  said : 


OBEDIENCE  TO   INSTRUCTIONS.  113 


OBEDIENCE  TO  INSTKUCTIOKS. 

CERTAINLY,  Gentlemen,  it  ought  to  be  the  happiness  and 
glory  of  a  representative  to  live  in  the  strictest  union,  the 
closest  correspondence,  and  the  most  unreserved  communica- 
tion with  his  constituents.  Their  wishes  ought  to  have  great 
weight  with  him ;  their  opinions  high  respect ;  their  business 
unremitted  attention.  It  is  his  duty  to  sacrifice  his  repose,  his 
pleasure,  his  satisfactions  to  theirs, —  and,  above  all,  ever,  and 
in  all  cases,  to  prefer  their  interest  to  his  own. 

But  his  unbiased  opinion,  his  mature  judgment,  his  enlight- 
ened conscience,  he  ought  not  to  sacrifice  to  you,  to  any  man, 
or  to  any  set  of  men  living.  These  he  does  not  derive  from 
your  pleasure, — no,  nor  from  the  law  and  the  Constitution. 
They  are  a  trust  from  Providence,  for  the  abuse  of  which  he  is 
deeply  answerable.  Your  representative  owes  you,  not  his 
industry  only,  but  his  judgment;  and  he  betrays,  instead  of 
serving  you,  if  he  sacrifices  it  to  your  opinion. 

My  worthy  colleague  says,  his  will  ought  to  be  subservient  to 
yours.  If  that  be  all,  the  thing  is  innocent.  If  government  were 
a  matter  of  will  upon  any  side,  yours,  without  question,  ought 
to  be  superior.  But  government  and  legislation  are  matters  of 
reason  and  judgment,  and  not  of  inclination ;  and  what  sort  of 
reason  is  that  in  which  the  determination  precedes  the  discus- 
sion, in  which  one  set  of  men  deliberate  and  another  decide, 

"The  speech  is  one  of  the  ablest  I  have  ever  heard,  and  it  is  one  which,  though 
1  have  had  the  happiness  of  knowing  many  men  of  very  brilliant  talents,  I  be- 
lieve  the  honourable  gentleman  only  could  have  made."  (Jibbon  also,  the  well- 
kn-uvn  historian,  then  :i  member  of  rarliament,  and  a  staunch  Tory,  afterwards 
\vn>te  as  follow.-  :  "  Never  can  I  forget  the  delight  with  which  that  diffusive  and 
ingenious  orator,  Mr.  I'.urke,  \\as  heard,  and  even  by  tho>e  whose  existence  he 
pro.-eribed."  I  mu-t  al-o  quote  a  passage  from  Macknight's  Life  and  Times  of 
Eitrke:  "For  three  hours  IK;  held  his  audience  under  his  irresistible  spell. 
Ministerialists,  courtiers,  sycophants,  sinecurists,  all  gave  the  most  complete 
testimony  to  the  orator's  success.  Tumultuous  cheers  and  roars  of  laughter 
^tended  him  throughout  the  course  of  bis  speech.  At  the  close  of  his  perora- 
tion, when  he  called  on  the  ("ominous  in  Parliament  to  be  one  and  the  same  with 

•nions  at  large,  and  entreated  them  to  throw  aside  the  temptations  of  the 
government  and  return  to  their  natural  home,  it  almost  seemed,  from  the  simul- 
taii'-ous  burst  of  enthusiasm  from  all  quarters,  that  there  were  not  nearly  a  hun- 
dred ministerial  retainers,  whose  political  aspirations  extended  only  to  the 
receipt  of  their  next  quarter's  salaries."  — On  the  whole,  this  mighty  speech  may 

;y  pronounced  the  llnest  piece  of  parliamentary  eloquence  in  the  lan- 
guage, or  perhaps  in  the  world.  Nevertheless  the  stolid  strength  of  the  King's 
phalanx  in  the  House  proved  too  much  for  Burke.  The  measure  was  not  car- 
ried  till  more  than  two  years  later,  wheu  Burku  himself  was  iu  oflice  uuder 
Lord  Uockingham. 


114  BURKE. 

and  where  those  who  form  the  conclusion  are  perhaps  three 
hundred  miles  distant  from  those  who  hear  the  arguments? 

To  deliver  an  opinion  is  the  right  of  all  men ;  that  of  constitu- 
ents is  a  weighty  and  respectable  opinion,  which  a  representa- 
tive ought  always  to  rejoice  to  hear,  and  which  he  ought  always 
most  seriously  to  consider.  But  authoritative  instructions,  man- 
dates issued,  which  the  member  is  bound  blindly  and  implicitly 
to  obey,  to  vote,  and  to  argue  for,  though  contrary  to  the  clear- 
est conviction  of  his  judgment  and  conscience, — these  are 
things  utterly  unknown  to  the  laws  of  this  land,  and  which 
arise  from  a  fundamental  mistake  of  the  whole  order  and 
tenour  of  our  Constitution. 

Parliament  is  not  a  congress  of  ambassadors  from  different 
and  hostile  interests,  which  interests  each  must  maintain,  as  an 
agent  and  advocate,  against  other  agents  and  advocates;  but 
Parliament  is  a  <l<  lil><  rutin  assembly  of  one  nation,  with  one  in- 
terest, that  of  the  whole,— where  not  local  purposes,  not  local 
prejudices,  ought  to  guide,  but  the  general  good,  resulting  from 
the  general  reason  of  the  whole.  You  choose  a  member,  in- 
deed ;  buj;  when  you  have  chosen  him,  he  is  not  a  member  of 
Bristol,  but  he  is  a  member  of  Parli>i,,i<  nt.  If  the  local  constit- 
uent should  have  an  interest  or  should  form  an  hasty  opinion 
evidently  opposite  to  the  real  good  of  the  rest  of  the  commu- 
nity, the  member  from  that  place  ought  to  be  as  far  as  any 
other  from  any  endeavour  to  give  it  effect.  I  beg  pardon  for 
saying  so  much  on  this  subject ;  I  have  been  unwillingly  drawn 
into  it;  but  I- shall  ever  use  a  respectful  frankness  of  communi- 
cation with  you.  Your  faithful  friend,  your  devoted  servant,  I 
shall  be  to  the  end  of  my  life  :  a  flatterer  you  do  not  wish  for. 
On  this  point  of  instructions,  however,  I  think  it  scarcely  p«»>M- 
ble  we  ever  can  have  any  sort  of  diiYerence.  Perhaps  1  may 
give  you  too  much,  rather  than  too  little  trouble. 

From  the  first  hour  1  was  encouraged  to  court  your  favour,  to 
this  happy  day  of  obtaining  it,  I  have  never  promised  you  any 
thing  but  humble  and  persevering  endeavours  to  do  my  duty. 
The  weight  of  that  duty,  I  confess,  makes  me  tremble ;  and 
whoever  well  considers  what  it  is,  of  all  things  in  the  world, 
will  .fly  from  what  has  the  least  likeness  to  a  positive  and  pre- 
cipitate engagement.  To  be  a  good  member  of  Parliament  is. 
let  me  tell  you,  no  easy  task,— especially  at  this  time,  when 
there  is  so  strong  a  disposition  to  run  into  the  perilous  extremes 
of  servile  compliance  or  wild  popularity.  To  unite  circumspec- 
tion with  vigour  is  absolutely  necessary,  but  it  is  extremely 
diilicult.  We  are  now  members  for  a  rich  commercial  city;  this 
city,  however,  is  but  a  part  of  a  rich  commercial  nation,  the  in- 
terests of  which  are  various,  multiform,  and  intricate.  AVu  are 


SPEECH   TO  THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  115 

members  for  that  great  nation,  which,  however,  is  itself  but 
part  of  a  great  empire,  extended  by  our  virtue  and  our  fortune 
to  the  farthest  limits  of  the  East  and  of  the  West.  All  these 
wide-spread  interests  must  be  considered,— must  be  compared, 
—  must  be  reconciled,  if  possible.  We  are  members  for  a,  free 
country ;  and  surely  we  all  know  that  the  machine  of  a  free 
constitution  is  no  simple  thing,  but  as  intricate  and  as  delicate 
as  it  is  valuable.  We  are  members  in  a  great  and  ancient  mon- 
archy; and  we  must  preserve  religiously  the  true,  legal  rights 
of  the  sovereign,  which  form  the  keystone  that  binds  together 
the  noble  and  well-constructed  arch  of  our  empire  and  our  Con- 
stitution. A  constitution  made  up  of  balanced  powers  must 
ever  be  a  critical  thing.  As  such  I  mean  to  touch  that  part  of 
it  which  comes  within  my  reach.  I  know  my  inability,  and  I 
wisli  for  support  from  every  quarter.  In  particular  I  shall  aim 
at  the  friendship,  and  shall  cultivate  the  best  correspondence, 
of  the  worthy  colleague  you  have  given  me. —  Speech  after  tJie 
election  at  Bristol,  1774. 


SPEECH  TO  THE  ELECTORS  OF  BRISTOL.5 

MR.  MAYOR,  AND  GENTLEMEN:  I  am  extremely  pleased  at 
the  appearance  of  this  large  and  respectable  meeting.  The 
sti-ps  I  may  be  obliged  to  take  will  want  the  sanction  of  a  con- 
siderable authority ;  and  in  explaining  any  thing  which  may 
appear  doubtful  in  my  public  conduct,  I  must  naturally  desire 
a  very  full  audience. 

I  have  IMMMI  l.:u-k ward  to  begin  my  canvass.  The  dissolution 
of  the  Parliament  was  uncertain  ;  and  it  did  not  become  me,  by 
an  unseasonable  importunity,  to  appear  diffident  of  the  effect  of 
my  six  years'  endeavours  to  please  you.  I  had  served  the  city 
of  1  Bristol  honourably,  and  the  city  of  Bristol  had  no  reason  to 
think  that  the  means  of  honourable  service  to  the  public  were 
•me  indifferent  to  me. 

I  found,  on  my  arrival  here,  that  three  gentlemen  had  been 
long  in  eager  pursuit  of  an  object  which  but  two  of  us  can  ob- 
tain. I  found  that  they  had  all  met  with  encouragement.  A 
contested  election  in  such  a  city  as  this  is  no  light  thing.  I 
paused  on  the  brink  of  the  precipice.  These  three  gentlemen/ 

5  This  speech  was  delivered  September  0, 1780.  Its  full  title  as  given  in  the 
printed  <,opy  is,"  Speerh  :it  the  (iuildhall  in  Bristol, previous  to  the  late  Election 
in  that  City,  upon  certain  Points  relative  to  his  Parliamentary  Conduct.  1780." 
Why  it  was  made  will  appear  sufficiently  from  the  body  of  the  speech  itself. 


116  BUKKE. 

by  various  merits,  and  on  various  titles,  I  made  no  doubt  were 
worthy  of  your  favour.  I  shall  never  attempt  to  raise  myself 
by  depreciating  the  merits  of  my  competitors.  In  the  complex- 
ity and  confusion  of  these  cross  pursuits,  I  wished  to  take  the 
authentic  public  sense  of  my  friends  upon  a  business  of  so  much 
delicacy.  I  wished  to  take  your  opinion  along  with  me,  that,  if 
I  should  give  up  the  contest  at  the  very  beginning,  my  surren- 
der of  my  post  may  not  seem  the  effect  of  inconstancy,  or  tim- 
idity, or  anger,  or  dis-gust,  or  indolence,  or  any  other  temper 
unbecoming  a  man  who  has  engaged  in  the  public  service.  If, 
on  the  contrary,  I  should  undertake  the  election,  and  fail  of 
success,  I  was  full  as  anxious  that  it  should  be  manifest  to  the 
whole  world  that  the  peace  of  the  city  had  not  been  broken  by 
my  rashness,  presumption,  or  fond  conceit  of  my  own  merit. 

I  am  not  come,  by  a  false  and  counterfeit  show  of  deference 
to  your  judgment,  to  seduce  it  in  my  favour.  I  ask  it  seriously 
and  unaffectedly.  If  you  wish  that  I  should  retire,  I  shall  not 
consider  that  advice  as  a  censure  upon  my  conduct,  or  an  alter- 
ation in  your  sentiments,  but  as  a  rational  submission  to  the 
circumstances  of  affairs.  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  should  think 
it  proper  for  me  to  proceed  in  my  canvass,  if  you  will  risk  the 
trouble  on  your  part,  I  will  risk  it  on  mine.  My  pretensions 
are  such  as  you  cannot  be  ashamed  of,  whether  they  succeed  or 
fail. 

If  you  call  upon  me,  I  shall  solicit  the  favour  of  the  city  upon 
manly  ground.  I  come  before  you  with  the  plain  confidence  of 
an  honest  servant  in  the  equity  of  a  candid  and  discerning  mas- 
ter. I  come  to  claim  your  approbation,  not  to  amuse  you  with 
vain  apologies,  or  with  professions  still  more  vain  and  senseless. 
I  have  lived  too  long  to  be  served  by  apologies,  or  to  stand  in 
need  of  them.  The  part  I  have  acted  has  been  in  open  day; 
and  to  hold  out  to  a  conduct  which  stands  in  that  clear  and 
steady  light  for  all  its  good  and  all  its  evil,  to  hold  out  to  that 
conduct  the  paltry,  winking  tapers  of  excuses  and  promises,— I 
never  will  do  it.  They  may  obscure  it  with  their  smoke,  but 
thev  never  can  illumine  sunshine  by  such  a  flame  as  theirs. 

I  am  sensible  that  no  endeavours  have  been  left  untried  to 
injure  me  in  your  opinion.  But  the  use  of  character  is  to  be  a 
shield  against  calumny.  I  could  wish,  undoubtedly,  (if  idle 
wishes  were  not  the  most  idle  of  all  things,)  to  make  every  part 
of  my  conduct  agreeable  to  every  one  of  my  constituents  ;  but 
in  so  great  a  city,  and  so  greatly  divided  as  this,  it  is  weak  to 
expect  it.6 

6  Burkc's  course  in  Parliament,  especially  on  the  American  question,  liad 
been  so  offensive  to  the  bigoted  and  the  interested  partisans  of  government, 
that  they  had  left  no  stone  unturned,  to  defeat  his  reelection  at  Bristol.  This  he 


SPEECH  TO  THE   ELECTORS   OF  BRISTOL.  117 

In  such  a  discordancy  of  sentiments  it  is  better  to  look  to  the 
nature  of  things  than  to  the  humours  of  men.  The  very  at- 
tempt towards  pleasing  everybody  discovers  a  temper  always 
flashy,  and  often,  false  and  insincere.  Therefore,  as  I  have 
proceeded  straight  onward  in  my  conduct,  so  I  will  proceed  in 
my  account  of  those  parts  of  it  which  have  been  most  excepted 
to.  But  I  must  first  beg  leave  just  to  hint  to  you  that  we  may 
suffer  very  great  detriment  by  being  open  to  every  talker. 
It  is  not  to  be  imagined  how  much  of  sen-ice  is  lost  from  spirits 
full  of  activity  and  full  of  energy,  who  are  pressing,  who  are 
rushing  forward,  to  great  and  capital  objects,  when  you  oblige 
them  to  be  continually  looking  back.  "Whilst  they  are  defend- 
ing one  service,  they  defraud  you  of  an  hundred.  Applaud  us 
when  we  run,  console  us  when  we  fall,  cheer  us  when  we 
recover ;  but  let  us  pass  on,— for  God's  sake,  let  us  pass  on  I 

Do  you  think,  Gentlemen,  that  every  public  act  in  the  six 
years  s.ince  1  stood  in  this  place  before  you,  that  all  the  arduous 
things  which  have  been  done  in  this  eventful  period  which  has 
crowded  into  a  few  years'  space  the  revolutions  of  an  age,  can 
be  opened  to  you  on  their  fair  grounds  in  half  an  hour's  con- 
versation ? 

But  it  is  no  reason,  because  there  is  a  bad  mode  of  inquiry, 
that  then-  should  be  no  examination  at  all.  Most  certainly  it  is 
our  duty  to  examine  ;  it  is  our  interest  too  :  but  it  must  be  with 
discretion,  with  an  attention  to  all  the  circumstances  and  to  all 
the  motives;  like  sound  judges,  and  not  like  cavilling  petti- 
ers  and  quibbling  pleaders,  prying  into  flaws  and  hunting 
for  exceptions.  Look,  Gentlemen,  to  the  whole  tenour  of  your 
member's  conduct.  Try  whether  his  ambition  or  his  avarice 
have  jostled  him  out  of  the  straight  line  of  duty, —  or  whether 
that  grand  foe  of  the  offices  of  active  life,  that  master  vice  in 
nen  of  business,  a  degenerate  and  inglorious  sloth,  has  made 
him  flag  and  languish  in  his  course.  This  is  the  object  of  our 
inquiry.  It'  our  member's  conduct  can. bear  this  touch,  mark  it 
for  sterling.  JIo  may  have  fallen  into  errors,  he  must  have 
faults  ;  but  our  error  is  greater,  and  our  fault  is  radically  ruin- 
was  himself  aware  of;  but  he  was  built  too  high  in  manly  honour  and  self- 
i-t  to  practice  any  sort  of  jugglery  with  the  people,  or  use  any  demagogic 
craft  for  the  sake  of  gaining  or  keeping  their  favour.  Therewithal  he  regarded 
tin-.  Issue  with  the  raininess  ..fa  philosopher.  A  short  time  before  the  making 
of  this  speech,  hi-  \\r<>te  t  >  a  prominent  citizen  of  Hristol  as  follows:  "It  re- 
mains lo  lie  .-ecu  whether  there  lie  enough  of  independence  among  us  to  support 
a  repn-M-nt -iti\  ••  who  throws  himself  on  his  own  good  behaviour,  and  the  good 
di.-po.-itions  of  his  constituent-,  without  playing  any  little  game  either  to  bribe 
or  to  delude  them.  I  shall  put  this  to  the  proof  within  a  few  days.  Jt  must 
have  a  good  effect,  one  way  or  the  other;  for  it  is  always  of  use  to  know  the  true 
temper  of  the  time  and  country  one  lives  in." 


118  BURKE. 

ons  to  ourselves,  if  \ve  do  not  bear,  if  we  do  not  even  applaud, 
the  whole  compound  and  mixed  mass  of  such  a  character.  Xot 
to  act  thus  is  folly;  I  had  almost  said  it  is  impiety.  He  cen- 
sures God  who  quarrels  with  the  imperfections  of  man. 

Gentlemen,  we  must  not  be  peevish  with  those  who  serve  the 
people  ;  for  none  will  serve  us,  whilst  there  is  a  Court  to  serve, 
but  those  who  are  of  a  nice  and  jealous  honour.  They  who 
think  every  thing,  in  comparison  of  that  honour,  to  be  dust  and 
ashes,  will  not  bear  to  have  it  soiled  and  impaired  by  those  for 
whose  sake  they  make  a  thousand  sacrifices  to  preserve  it 
immaculate  and  whole.  We  shall  either  drive  such  men  from 
the  public  stage,  or  we  shall  send  them  to  the  Court  for  pro- 
tection, where,  if  they  must  sacrifice  their  reputation,  they  will 
at  least  secure  their  interest.  Depend  upon  it,  that  the  lovers 
of  freedom  will  be  fret*.  Xone  will  violate  their  conscience  to 
please  us,  in  order  afterwards  to  discharge  that  conscience 
which  they  have  violated,  by  doing  us  faithful  and  affectionate 
service.  If  we  degrade  and  deprave  their  minds  by  servility, 
it  will  be  absurd  to  expect  that  they  who  are  creeping  and 
abject  towards  us  will  ever  be  bold  and  incorruptible  assert  ors 
of  our  freedom  against  the  most  seducing  and  the  most  formid- 
able of  all  powers.  No  !  human  nature  is  not  so  formed  :  nor 
shall  we  improve  the  faculties  or  better  the  morals  of  public 
men  by  our  possession  of  the  most  infallible  receipt  in  the 
world  for  making  cheats  and  hypocrites. 

Let  me  say,  with  plainness,  I  who  am  no  longer  in  a  public 
character,  that  if,  by  a  fair,  by  an  indulgent,  by  a  gentlemanly 
behaviour  to  our  representatives,  we  do  not  give  confidence  to 
their  minds  and  a  liberal  scope  to  their  understandings,  if  we 
do  not  permit  our  members  to  act  upon  a  very  enlarged  view  of 
things,  we  shall  at  length  infallibly  degrade  our  national 
representation  into  a  confused  and  scuffling  bustle  of  local 
agency.  When  the  popular  member  is  narrowed  in  his  ideas 
and  rendered  timid  in  his  proceedings,  the  service  of  the  Crown 
will  be  the  sole  nursery  of  statesmen.  Among  the  frolics  of 
the  Court,  it  may  at  length  take  that  of  attending  to  its  busi- 
ness. Then  the  monopoly  of  mental  power  will  be  added  to  the 
power  of  all  other  kinds  it  possesses.  On  the  side  of  the  people 
there  will  be  nothing  but  impotence  :  for  ignorance  is  impo- 
tence ;  narrowness  of  mind  is  impotence ;  timidity  is  itself 
impotence,  and  makes  all  other  qualities  that  go  along  with  it 
impotent  and  useless. 

At  present  it  is  the  plan  of  the  Court  to  make  its  sen-ants 
insignificant.  If  the  people  should  fall  into  the  same  humour, 
and  should  choose  their  servants  on  the  same  principles  of 
mere  obsequiousness  and  flexibility  and  total  vacancy  or  iudif- 


SPEECH   TO  THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  119 

ference  of  opinion  in  all  public  matters,  then  no  part  of  the 
State  will  be  sound,  and  it  will  be  in  vain  to  think  of  saving  it. 

I  thought  it  very  expedient  at  this  time  to  give  you  this  can- 
did counsel ;  and  with  this  counsel  I  would  willingly  close,  if 
the  matters  which  at  various  times  have  been  objected  to  me  in 
this  city  concerned  only  myself  and  my  own  election.  These 
charges,  I  think,  are  four  in  number :  my  neglect  of  a  due 
attention  to  my  constituents, — the  not  paying  more  frequent 
visits  here ;  my  conduct  on  the  affairs  of  the  first  Irish  Trade 
Acts  ;  my  opinion  and  mode  of  proceeding  on  Lord  Beau- 
champ's  Debtors'  Bills  ;  and  my  votes  on  the  late  affairs  of  the 
Eoman  Catholics.  All  of  these  (except  perhaps  the  first)  relate 
to  matters  of  very  considerable  public  concern  ;  and  it  is  not 
lest  you  should  censure  me  improperly,  but  lest  you  should 
form  improper  opinions  on  matters  of  some  moment  to  you,  that 
I  trouble  you  at  all  upon  the  subject.  My  conduct  is  of  small 
importance. 

With  regard  to  the  first  charge,  my  friends  have  spoken  to  mo 
of  it  in  the  style  of  amicable  expostulation,— not  so  much 
blaming  the  thing  as  lamenting  the  effects.  Others,  less  partial 
to  me,  were  less  kind  in  assigning  the  motives.  I  admit,  there 
is  a  decorum  and  propriety  in  a  member  of  Parliament's  paying 
a  ivspectful  court  to  his  constituents.  If  I  were  conscious  to 
myself  that  pleasure,  or  dissipation,  or-  low,  unworthy  occupa- 
tions had  detained  me  from  personal  attendance  on  you,  I 
would  readily  admit  my  fault,  and  quietly  submit  to  the  pen- 
alty. But,  Gentlemen,  I  live  at  an  hundred  miles'  distance 
from  Bristol;  and  at  the  end  of  a  session  I  come  to  my  own 
house,  fatigued  in  body  and  in  mind,  to  a  little  repose,  and  to 
a  very  little  attention  to  my  family  and  my  private  concerns. 
A  visit  to  Bristol  is  always  a  sort  of  canvass,  else  it  will  do 
more  harm  than  good.  To  pass  from  the  toils  of  a  session  to 
the  toils  of  a  canvass  is  the  farthest  thing  in  the  world  from 
repose.  I  could  hardly  serve  you  as  I  have  done,  and  court  you 
too.  Most  of  you  have  heard  that  I  do  not  very  remarkably 
spare  myself  in  public  business ;  and  in  the  private  business 
of  my  constituents  I  have  done  very  near  as  much  as  those 
who  have  nothing  else  to  do.  My  canvass  of  you  was  not  on 
the  'change,  nor  in  the  county  meetings,  nor  in  the  clubs  of 
this  city  :  it  was  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  it  was  at  the  Cus- 
tom-IIouse  ;  it  was  at  the  Council;  it  was  at  the  Treasury; 
it  was  at  the  Admiralty.  I  canvassed  you  through  your  affairs, 
and  not  your  persons.  I  was  not  only  your  representative  as  a- 
body;  I  was  the  agent,  the  solicitor  of  individuals;  I  ran 
about  wherever  your  affairs  could  call  me;  and  in  acting  for 
you  I  often  appeared  rather  as  a  ship-broker  than  as  a  member 


120  BURKE. 

of  Parliament.  There  was  nothing  too  laborious  or  too  low  for 
me  to  undertake.  The  meanness  of  the  business  was  raised  by 
the  dignity  of  the  object.  If  some  lesser  matters  have  slipped 
through  my  fingers,  it  was  because  I  filled  ray  hands  too  full, 
and,  in  my  eagerness  to  serve  you,  took  in  more  than  any  hands 
could  grasp.  Several  gentlemen  stand  round  me  who  are  my 
willing  witnesses  ;  and  there  are  others  who,  if  they  were  here, 
would,  be  still  better,  because  they  would  be  unwilling  wit- 
nesses to  the  same  truth.  It  was  in  the  middle  of  a  summer 
residence  in  London,  and  in  the  middle  of  a  negotiation  at  the 
Admiralty  for  your  trade,  that  I  was  called  to  Bristol ;  and 
this  late  visit,  at  this  late  day,  has  been  possibly  in  prejudice 
to  your  affairs. 

Since  I  have  touched  upon  this  matter,  let  me  say,  Gentle- 
men, that,  if  I  had  a  disposition  or  a  right  to  complain,  I  have 
some  cause  of  complaint  on  my  side.  With  a  petition  of  this 
city  in  my  hand,  passed  through  the  corporation  without  a  dis- 
senting voice,  a  petition  in  unison  with  almost  the  whole  voice 
of  the  kingdom,  (with  whose  formal  thanks  I  was  covered  over,) 
whilst  I  laboured  on  no  less  than  five  bills  for  a  public  reform, 
and  fought,  against  the  opposition  of  great  abilities  and  of  the 
greatest  power,  every  clause  and  every  word  of  the  largest  of 
those  bills,  almost  to  the  very  last  day  of  a  very  long  session,7  — 
all  this  time  a  canvass  in  Bristol  was  as  calmly  carried  on  as  if  I 
were  dead.  I  was  considered  as  a  man  wholly  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Whilst  I  watched  and  fasted  and  sweated  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  by  the  most  easy  and  ordinary  arts  of  election,  by 
dinners  and  visits,  by  "How  do  you  do's,"  and,  "My  worthy 
friends,"  I  was  to  be  quietly  moved  out  of  my  seat ;  and  prom- 
ises were  made,  and  engagements  entered  into,  without  any  ex- 
ception or  reserve,  as  if  my  laborious  zeal  in  my  duty  had  been 
a  regular  abdication  of  my  trust. 

To  open  my  whole  heart  to  you  on  this  subject,  I  do  COT 
however,  that  there  were  other  times,  besides  the  two  years  in 
which  I  did  visit  you,  when  I  was  not  wholly  without  leisure  for 
repeating  that  mark  of  my  respect.  But  I  could  not  bring  my 
mind  to  see  you.  You  remember  that  in  the  beginning  of  this 
American  war  (that  era  of  calamity,  disgrace,  and  downfall,  an 
era  which  no  feeling  mind  will  ever  mention  without  a  tear  for 
England)  you  were  greatly  divided  ;  and  a  very  strong  body,  if 
not  the  strongest,  opposed  itself  to  the  madness  which  every 
art  and  every  power  were  employed  to  render  popular,  in  order 
that  the  errors  of  the  rulers  might  be  lost  in  the  general  biind- 

7    The  reference  here  is  to  the  speaker's  labours  in  behalf  of  economical  ro- 
form.    What  these  were,  is  partly  shown  in  the  preceding  speech. 


SPEECH   TO   THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  121 

ness  of  the  nation.  This  opposition  continued  until  after  our 
great,  but  most  unfortunate  victory  at  Long  Island.  Then  all 
the  mounds  and  banks  of  our  constancy  were  borne  down  at 
once,  and  the  frenzy  of  the  American  war  broke  in  upon  us  like 
a  deluge.  This  victory,  which  seemed  to  put  an  immediate  end 
to  all  difficulties,  perfected  us  in  that  spirit  of  domination  which 
our  unparalleled  prosperity  had  but  too  long  nurtured.  We 
had  been  so  very  powerful,  and  so  very  prosperous,  that  even 
the  humblest  of  us  were  degraded  into  the  vices  and  follies  of 
kings.  We  lost  all  measure  between  means  and  ends  ;  and  our 
headlong  desires  became  our  politics  and  our  morals.  All  men 
who  wished  for  peace,  or  retained  any  sentiments  of  modera- 
tion, were  overborne  or  silenced ;  and  this  city  was  led  by 
every  artifice  (and  probably  with  the  more  management  because 
I  was  one  of  your  members)  to  distinguish  itself  by  its  zeal  for 
that  fatal  cause.  In  this  temper  of  yours  and  of  my  mind,  I 
should  sooner  have  fled  to  the  extremities  of  the  Earth  than 
have  shown  myself  here.  I,  who  saw  in  every  American  victory 
(for  you  have  had  a  long  series  of  these  misfortunes)  the  germ 
and  seed  of  the  naval  power  of  France  and  Spain,  which  all  our 
heat  and  warmth  against  America  was  only  hatching  into  life, — 
I  should  not  have  been  a  welcome  visitant,  with  the  brow  and 
the  language  of  such  feelings.  When,  afterwards,  the  other 
face  of  your  calamity  was  turned  upon  you,  and  showed  itself 
in  defeat  and  distress,  I  shunned  you  full  as  much.  I  felt 
sorely  this  variety  in  our  wretchedness ;  and  I  did  not  wish  to 
have  the  least  appearance  of  insulting  you  with  that  show  of 
superiority  which,  though  it  may  not  be  assumed,  is  generally 
suspected,  in  a  time  of  calamity,  from  those  whose  previous 
warnings  have  been  despised.  I  could  not  bear  to  show  you  a 
representative  whose  face  did  not  reflect  that  of  his  constitu- 
>,  —  a  face  that  could  not  joy  in  your  joys,  and  sorrow  in 
your  sorrows.  But  time  at  length  has  made  us  all  of  one  opin- 
ion, and  \ve  have  all  opened  our  eyes  on  the  true  nature  of  the 
American  war, —  to  the  true  nature  of  all  its  successes  and  all 
it>  failures. 

In  that  public  storm,  too,  I  had  my  private  feelings.    I  had 

:  blown  down  and  prostrate  on  the  ground  several  of  those 

houses  to  whom  I  was  chiefly  indebted  for  the  honour  this  city 

lias  done,  ine.s    I  confess  that,  whilst  the  wounds  of  those  I 

I  were  yet  green,  I  could  not  bear  to  show  myself  in  pride 

and    triumph  in  that   place  into  which   their   partiality  had 

brought  me,  and  to  appear  at  feasts  and  rejoicings  in  the  midst 

8  Bristol  was  then  the  centre  of  :i  lar<?e  American  trade,  and  \vas  thus  held 
to  the  side  of  the  colonies  by  the  strong  tie  of  commercial  interest.  Of  course 
the  business  of  the  place  buffered  greatly  from  the  stoppage  of  trade  by  the  war. 


122  BURKE. 

of  the  grief  and  calamity  of  my  warm  friends,  my  zealous  sup- 
porters, my  generous  benefactors.  This  is  a  true,  unvarnished, 
undisguised  state  of  the  affair.  You  will  judge  of  it. 

This  is  the  only  one, of  the  charges  in  which  I  am  personally 
concerned.  As  to  the  other  matters  objected  against  mo,  which 
in  their  turn  I  shall  mention  to  you,  remember  once  more  I  do 
not  mean  to  extenuate  or  excuse.  Why  should  I,  when  the 
things  charged  are  among  those  upon  which  I  found  all  my 
reputation?  What  would  be  left  to  me,  if  I  myself  was  the 
man  who  softened  and  blended  and  diluted  and  weakened  all 
the  distinguishing  colours  of  my  life,  so  as  to  leave  nothing  dis- 
tinct and  determinate  in  my  whole  conduct? 

It  has  been  said,  and  it  is  the  second  charge,  that  in  the  ques- 
tions of  the  Irish  trade  I  did  not  consult  the  interest  of  my  con- 
stituents,—  or,  to  speak  out  strongly,  that  I  rather  acted  as  a 
native  of  Ireland  than  as  an  English  member  of  Parliament. 

I  certainly  have  very  w;>rm  good  wishes  for  the  place  of  my 
birth.  But  the  sphere  of  my  duties  is  my  true  country.  It  was 
as  a  man  attached  to  your  interests,  and  zealous  for  the  con- 
servation of  your  power  and  dignity,  that  I  acted  on  that  occa- 
sion, and  on  all  occasions.  You  were  involved  in  the  American 
war.  A  new  world  of  policy  was  opened,  to  which  it  was  neces- 
sary we  should  conform,  whether  we  would  or  not ;  and  my 
only  thought  was  how  to  conform  to  our  situation  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  unite  to  this  kingdom,  in  prosperity  and  in  affec- 
tion, whatever  remained  of  the  empire.  I  was  true  to  my  old, 
standing,  invariable  principle,  that  all  things  which  came  from 
Great  Britain  should  issue  as  a  gift  of  her  bounty  and  benefi- 
cence, rather  than  as  claims  recovered  against  a  struggling 
litigant;  or,  at  least,  that  if  your  beneficence  obtained  no 
credit  in  your  concessions,  yet  that  they  should  appear  the 
salutary  provisions  of  your  wisdom  and  foresight,  not  as  things 
wrung  from  you  with  your  blood  by  the  cruel  gripe  of  a  rigid 
necessity.  The  first  concessions,  by  being  (much  against  my 
will)  mangled  and  stripped  of  the  parts  which  were  necessary  to 
make  out  their  just  correspondence  and  connection  in  trade, 
were  of  no  use.  The  next  year  a  feeble  attempt  was  made  to 
bring  the  thing  into  better  shape.  This  attempt,  (countenanced 
by  the  Minister,)  on  the  very  iir^t  appearance  of  some  popular 
uneasiness,  was,  after  a  considerable  progress  through  the 
House,  thrown  out  by  him. 

What  was  the  consequence?  The  whole  kingdom  of  Ireland 
was  instantly  in  a  flame.  Threatened  by  foreigners,  and,  as 
they  thought,  insulted  by  England,  they  resolved  at  once  to 
resist  the  power  of  France  and  to  cast  oil  yours.  As  for  us, 
we  were  able  neither  to  protect  nor  to  restrain  them.  Forty 


SPEECH   TO  THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  123 

thousand  men  were  raised  and  disciplined  without  commission 
from  the  Crown.  Two  illegal  armies  were  seen  with  banners 
displayed  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  country.  No  exec- 
utive magistrate,  no  judicature,  in  Ireland,  would  acknowledge 
the  legality  of  the  army  which  bore  the  King's  commission ; 
and  no  law,  or  appearance  of  law,  authorized  the  army  commis- 
sioned by  itself.  In  this  unexampled  state  of  things,  which  the 
least  error,  the  least  trespass  on  the  right  or  left,  would  have 
hurried  down  the  precipice  into  an  abyss  of  blood  and  confu- 
sion, the  people  of  Ireland  demand  a  freedom  of  trade  with 
arms  in  their  hands.'1  They  interdict  all  commerce  between  the 
two  nations.  They  deny  all  new  supply  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, although  in  time  of  war.  They  stint  the  trust  of  the  old 
revenue,  given  for  two  years  to  all  the  King's  predecessors,  to 
six  months.  The  British  Parliament,  in  a  former  session, 
frightened  into  a  limited  concession  by  the  menaces  of  Ireland, 
frightened  out  of  it  by  the  menaces  of  England,  was  now  fright- 
ened back  again,  and  made  an  universal  surrender  of  all  that 
had  been  thought  the  peculiar,  reserved,  uncommunicable 
rights  <if  England:  the  exclusive  commerce  of  America,  of  Af- 
rica, of  the  West  Indies,— all  the  enumerations  of  the  Acts  of 
Navigation, —  all  the  manufactures, — iron,  glass,  even  the  last 
pledge  of  jealousy  and  pride,  the  interest  hid  in  the  secret  of 
our  hearts,  the  inveterate  prejudice  moulded  into  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  frame,  even  the  sacred  fleece  itself,  all  went  to- 
gether. No  reserve,  no  exception;  no  debate,  no  discussion. 
A  Midden  light  broke  in  upon  us  all.  It  broke  in,  not  through 
well-contrived  and  well-disposed  windows,  but  through  flaws 
and  breaches,— through  the  yawning  chasms  of  our  ruin.  We 
were  taught  wisdom  by  humiliation.  No  town  in  England  pre- 
sumed to  have  a  prejudice,  or  dared  to  mutter  a  petition.  AVhat 
worse,  the  whole  Parliament  of  England,  which  retained 
authority  for  nothing  but  surrenders,  was  despoiled  of  every 
shadow  of  its  superintendence.  It  was,  without  any  qualifica- 
tion, denied  in  theory,  as  it  had  been  trampled  upon  in  practice. 
This  scene  of  shame  and  disgrace  has,  in  a  manner,  whilst  I  am 
:!Jng,  ended  in  the  perpetual  establishment  of  a  military 
power  in  the  dominions  of  this  Crown,  without  consent  of  the 
British  legislature,10  contrary  to  the  policy  of  the  Constitution, 

9  Most  of  the  English  people  at  that  time  were  stiff  bigots  to  the  notion,  that 
the  be  .if.   \\  ay  to  promote  their  own  commercial  interests  was  by  oppressing 
tlio-e.  of  their  neighbour.--.     So,  in  order  to  protect  English  manufactures,  they 

!<:<!  on  having  the  importation  of  Irish  manufactures  heavily  taxed.    Burke, 
on  the  contrary,  was  all  the  while  a  staunch  believer  in  freedom  of  trade,  and 
;  lie  very  first  to  put  forth  just  and  liberal  ideas  on  that  subject. 

10  The  allusion  is  to  what  was  culled  the  Terpetual  Mutiny  Act,  passed  by 


124  BURKE. 

contrary  to  the  Declaration  of  Right ; l  and  by  this  your  liber- 
ties are  swept  away  along  with  your  supreme  authority ;  and 
both,  linked  together  from  the  beginning,  have,  I  am  afraid, 
both  together  perished  for  ever. 

What !  Gentlemen,  was  I  not  to  foresee,  or  foreseeing,  was  I 
not  to  endeavour  to  save  you  from  all  these  multiplied  mis- 
chiefs and  disgraces?  Would  the  little,  silly,  canvass  prattle  of 
obeying  instructions,  and  having  no  opinions  but  yours,  and 
such  idle,  senseless  tales,  which  amuse  the  vacant  ears  of 
unthinking  men,  have  saved  you  from  "the  pelting  of  that 
pitiless  storm"  to  which  the  loose  improvidence,  the  cowardly 
rashness,  of  those  who  dare  not  look  danger  in  the  face  so  as  to 
provide  against  it  in  time,  and  therefore  throw  themselves 
headlong  into  the  midst  of  it,  have  exposed  this  degraded 
nation,  beat  down  and  prostrate  on  the  earth,  unsheltered, 
unarmed,  unresisting?  Was  I  an  Irishman  on  that  day  that 
I  boldly  withstood  our  pride ?  or  on  the  day  that  I  hung  down 
my  head,  and  wept  in  shame  and  silence  over  the  humiliation 
of  Great  Britain  ?  I  became  unpopular  in  England  for  the  one, 
and  in  Ireland  for  the  other.  What  then?  What  obligation 
lay  on  me  to  be  popular  ?  I  was  bound  to  serve  both  kingdoms. 
To  be  pleased  with  my  service  was  their  affair,  not  mine. 

I  was  an  Irishman  in  the  Irish  business,  just  as  much  as  I 
was  an  American,  when,  on  the  same  principles,  I  wished  you 
to  concede  to  America  at  a  time  when  she  prayed  concession  at 
our  feet.  Just  as  much  was  I  an  American,  when  I  wished 
Parliament  to  offer  terms  in  victory,  and  not  to  wait  the  ill- 
chosen  hour  of  defeat,  for  making  good  by  weakness  and  by 
supplication  a  claim  of  prerogative,  preeminence,  and  authority. 

Instead  of  requiring  it  from  me,  as  a  point  of  duty,  to  kindle 
with  your  passions,  had  you  all  been  as  cool  as  I  was,  you 
would  have  been  saved  disgraces  and  distresses  that  arc  un- 
utterable. Do  you  remember  our  commission?  We  sent  out 
a  solemn  embassy  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  to  lay  the  crown, 
the  peerage,  the  commons  of  Great  Britain  at  the  feet  of  the 
American  Congress.  That  our  disgrace  might  want  no  sort  of 
brightening  and  burnishing,  observe  \vho  they  were  that  com- 

thc  Parliament  of  Ireland,  in  order  to  secure  their  freedom  of  trade.  The  par- 
liamentary  union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  which  now  exists,  did  nut  take 
place  till  alter  the  death  of  Burke. 

I  The  Declaration  ofJtlght,  one  of  the  great  landmarks  of  British  freedom, 
and  ranking  along  with  Jfagna  Charta  in  the  history  of  English  Constitution::! 
Law,  is  the  solemn  compact  or  covenant  under  which,  in  1088,  William  and 
Mary  took  the  throne,  to  the  exclusion  of  James  the  Second.  One  of  its  affirma- 
tions is,  that  the  raising  or  keeping  a  standing  army  within  the  kingdom,  in 
time  of  peace,  unless  by  consent  of  Parliament,  is  illegal. 


SPEECH  TO   THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  125 

posed  this  famous  embassy.  My  Lord  Carlisle  is  among  the 
first  ranks  of  our  nobility.  He  is  the  identical  man  who,  but 
two  years  before,  had  been  put  forward,  at  the  opening  of  a  ses- 
sion, in  the  House  of  Lords,  as  the  mover  of  an  haughty  and  rig- 
orous address  against  America.  He  was  put  in  the  front  of  the 
embassy  of  submission.  Mr.  Eden  was  taken  from  the  office  of 
Lord  Suffolk,  to  whom  he  was  then  Under-Secretary  of  State, — 
from  the  office  of  that  Lord  Suffolk  who  but  a  few  weeks 
before,  in  his  place  in  Parliament,  did  not  deign  to  inquire 
where  a  congress  of  vagrants  was  to  be  found.  This  Lord 
Suffolk  sent  Mr.  Eden  to  find  these  vagrants,  without  knowing 
where  his  King's  generals  were  to  be  found  who  were  joined  in 
the  same  commission  of  supplicating  those  whom  they  were 
sent  to  subdue.  They  enter  the  capital  of  America  only  to 
abandon  it;  and  these  assertors  and  representatives  of  tho 
dignity  of  England,  at  the  tail  of  a  flying  army,  let  fly  their 
Parthian  shafts  of  memorials  and  remonstrances  at  random 
behind  them.  Their  promises  and  their  offers,  their  flatteries 
and  their  menaces,  were  all  despised;  and  we  were  saved  the 
disgrace  of  their  formal  reception  only  because  the  Congress 
scorned  to  receive  them  ;  whilst  the  state-house  of  independent 
Philadelphia  opened  her  doors  to  the  public  entry  of  the  am- 
hassador  of  France.  From  war  and  blood  we  went  to  submis- 
sion, and  from  submission  plunged  back  again  to  war  and 
blond,  to  desolate  and  be  desolated,  without  measure,  hope,  or 
end.  I  am  a  IJoyalist :  I  blushed  for  this  degradation  of  tho 
Crown.  I  am  a  Whig  :  I  blushed  for  the  dishonour  of  Parlia- 
ment. I  am  a  true  Englishman  :  1  felt  to  the  quick  for  the 
disgrace  of  England.  I  am  a  man  :  I  felt  for  the  melancholy 

6  of  human  affairs  in  the  fall  of  the  first  power  in  the 
world. 

To  read  what  was  approaching  in  Ireland,  in  the  black  and 
bio'.dy  characters  of  the  American  war,   was  ;i  painful,  but  it 

nc'-cssary  part  of  my  public  duty.  For,  Gentlemen,  it  is 
not  your  fond  desires  or  mine  that  can  alter  the  nature  of 
things  ;  by  contending  against  which,  what  have  we  got,  or 
shall  ever  get,  but  defeat  and  shame?  I  did  not  obey  your 
instructions.  No.  I  conformed  to  the  instructions  of  truth 
and  Nature,  and  maintained  your  interest,  against  your  opin- 
ions, with  a  constancy  that  became  me.  A  representative 
worthy  of  you  ought  to  bo  a  person  of  stability.  I  am  to  look, 
indeed,  to  your  opinions, — but  to  such  opinions  as  you  and  I 
five  years  hence.  I  was  not  to  look  to  the  flash  of 

;y.  1  knew  that  you  chose  me,  in  my  place,  along  with 
ol  hers,  to  be  a  pillar  of  the  State,  and  not  a  weathercock  on  the 
top  of  the  edilice,  exalted  for  my  levity  and  versatility,  and  of 


126  BURKE. 

no  use  but  to  indicate  the  shiftings  of  every  fashionable  gale. 
Would  to  God  the  value  of  my  sentiments  on  Ireland  and  on 
America  had  been  at  this  day  a  subject  of  doubt  and  discus- 
sion !  ~No  matter  what  my  sufferings  had  been,  so  that  this 
kingdom  had  kept  the  authority  I  wished  it  to  maintain,  by 
a  grave  foresight,  and  by  an  equitable  temperance  in  the  use  of 
its  power. 

The  next  article  of  charge  on  my  public  conduct,  and  that 
which  I  find  rather  the  most  prevalent  of  all,  is  Lord  Beau- 
champ's  bill :  I  mean  his  bill  of  last  session,  for  reforming  the 
law-process  concerning  imprisonment.  It  is  said,  to  aggravate 
the  offence,  that  I  treated  the  petition  of  this  city  with  con- 
tempt even  in  presenting  it  to  the  House,  and  expressed  myself 
in  terms  of  marked  disrespect.  Had  this  latter  part  of  the 
charge  been  true,  no  merits  on  the  side  of  the  question  which  I 
took  could  possibly  excuse  me.  But  I  am  incapable  of  treating 
this  city  with  disrespect.  Very  fortunately,  at  this  minute,  (if 
my  bad  eyesight  does  not  deceive  me,)  the  worthy  gentleman 
deputed  on  this  business  stands  directly  before  me.  To  him  I 
appeal,  whether  I  did  not,  though  it  militated  with  my  oldest 
and  my  most  recent  public  opinions,  deliver  the  petition  with  a 
strong  and  more  than  usual  recommendation  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  House,  on  account  of  the  character  and  consequence 
of  those  who  signed  it.  I  believe  the  worthy  gentleman  will 
tell  you  that,  the  very  day  I  received  it,  I  applied  to  the  Solic- 
itor, now  the  Attorney  General,  to  give  it  an  immediate  consid- 
eration ;  and  he  most  obligingly  and  instantly  consented  to 
employ  a  great  deal  of  his  very  valuable  time  to  write  an  expla- 
nation of  the  bill.  I  attended  the  committee  with  all  possible 
care  and  diligence,  in  order  that  every  objection  of  yours  might 
meet  with  a  solution,  or  produce  an  alteration.  I  entreated 
your  learned  recorder  (always  ready  in  business  in  which  you 
take  a  concern)  to  attend.  But  what  will  you  say  to  those  who 
blame  me  for  supporting  Lord  Beauchamp's  bill,  as  a  disre- 
spectful treatment  of  your  petition,  when  you  hear  that,  out  of 
respect  to  you,  I  myself  was  the  cause  of  the  loss  of  that  very 
bill?  For  the  noble  lord  who  brought  it  in,  and  who,  I  must 
say,  has  much  merit  for  this  and  some  other  measures,  at  my 
request  consented  to  put  it  off  for  a  week,  which  the  Speak' 
illness  lengthened  to  a  fortnight ;  and  then  the  frantic  tumult 
about  Popery  drove  that  and  every  rational  business  from  the 
House.  So  that,  if  I  chose  to  make  a  defence  of  myself,  on  the 
little  principles  of  a  culprit,  pleading  in  his  exculpation,  I  might 
not  only  secure  my  acquittal,  but  make  merit  with  the  opposers 
of  the  bill.  But  I  shall  do  no  such  thing.  The  truth  .is,  that  I 
did  occasion  the  loss  of  the  bill,  and  by  a  delay  caused  by  my 


SPEECH  TO  THE  ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  127 

respect  to  you.  But  such  an  event  was  never  in  my  contempla- 
tion. And  I  am  so  far  from  taking  credit  for  the  defeat  of  that 
measure,  that  I  cannot  sufficiently  lament  my  misfortune,  if  but 
one  man,  who  ought  to  be  at  large,  has  passed  a  year  in  prison 
by  my  means.  I  am  a  debtor  to  the  debtors.  I  confess  judg- 
ment. I  owe  what,  if  ever  it  be  in  my  power,  I  shall  most  cer- 
tainly pay, — ample  atonement  and  usurious  amends  to  liberty 
and  humanity  for  my  unhappy  lapse.  For,  Gentlemen,  Lord 
Beauchamp's  bill  was  a  law  of  justice  and  policy,  as  far  as  it 
went:  I  say,  as  far  as  it  went ;  for  its  fault  was  its  being  in  the 
remedial  part  miserably  defective. 

There  are  two  capital  faults  in  our  law  with  relation  to  civil 
debts.  One  is,  that  every  man  is  presumed  solvent ;  a  presump- 
tion, in  innumerable  cases,  directly  against  truth.  Therefore 
the  debtor  is  ordered,  on  a  supposition  of  ability  and  fraud,  to 
be  coerced  his  liberty  until  he  makes  payment.  By  this  means, 
in  all  cases  of  civil  insolvency,  without  a  pardon  from  his  cred- 
itor, he  is  to  be  imprisoned  for  life  ;  and  thus  a  miserable,  mis- 
taken invention  of  artificial  science  operates  to  change  a  civil 
into  a  criminal  judgment,  and  to  scourge  misfortune  or  indiscre- 
tion with  a  punishment  which  the  law  does  not  inflict  on  the 
greatest  crimes. 

The  next  fault  is,  that  the  inflicting  of  that  punishment  is  not 
on  the  opinion  of  an  equal  and  public  judge,  but  is  referred  to 
the  arbitrary  discretion  of  a  private,  nay,  interested  and  irri- 
tated, individual.-  Ho  who  formally  is,  and  substantially  ought 
to  be,  the  judge,  is  in  reality  no  more  than  ministerial,  a  mere 
executive  instrument  of  a  private  man,  who  is  at  once  judge 
and  party.  K\ery  idea  of  judicial  order  is  subverted  by  this 
procedure.  If  the  insolvency  l>e  no  crime,  why  is  it  punished 
with  arbitrary  imprisonment?  If  it  be  a  crime,  why  is  it  deliv- 
ered into  private  hands  to  pardon  without  discretion,  or  to  pun- 
ish without  mercy  and  without  measure? 

To  these  faults,  gross  and  cruel  faults  in  our  law,  the  excel- 
lent principle  of  Lord  Bcauchamp's  bill  applied  some  sort  of 
remedy.  I  know  that  credit  must  be  preserved:  but  equity 
...  pn-ervc-d  too;  and  it  is  impossible  that  any  thing 
should  be  necessary  to  commerce  which  is  inconsistent  witli 
justice.  The  principle  of  credit  was  not  weakened  by  that  bill. 
<;od  forbid  !  The  enforcement  of  that  credit  was  only  put  into 
MIC  public  judicial  hands  on  which  we  depend  for  our  lives 
and  all  that  makes  life  dear  to  us.  But  indeed  this  business 
tken  up  too  warmly,  both  here  and  elsewhere.  The  bill 

'2  This  "private  individual"  is,  to  be  sure,  the  creditor  himself,  whose  will 
dominates  the  \vholu  question :  BO  that  he  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the 
judge  in  his  own  case,  while  the  public  judge  is  merely  his  minister  or  agent. 


128  BURKE. 

was  extremely  mistaken.  It  was  supposed  to  enact  what  it 
never  enacted ;  and  complaints  were  made  of  clauses  in  it,  as 
novelties,  which  existed  before  the  noble  lord  that  brought  in 
the  bill  was  born.  There  was  a  fallacy  that  ran  through  the 
whole  of  the  objections.  The  gentlemen  who  opposed  the  bill 
always  argued  as  if  the  option  lay  between  that  bill  and  the  an- 
cient law.  But  this  is  a  grand  mistake.  For,  practically,  the 
option  is  between  not  that  bill  and  the  old  law,  but  between 
that  bill  and  those  occasional  laws  called  Acts  of  Grace.  For 
the  operation  of  the  old  law  is  so  savage,  and  so  inconvenient 
to  society,  that  for  a  long  time  past,  once  in  every  Parliament, 
and  lately  twice,  the  legislature  has  been  obliged  to  make  a 
general  arbitrary  jail-delivery,  and  at  once  to  set  open,  by  its 
sovereign  authority,  all  the  prisons  in  England. 

Gentlemen,  I  never  relished  Acts  of  grace,  nor  ever  submit- 
ted to  them  but  from  despair  of  better.  They  are  a  dishonour- 
able invention,  by  which,  not  from  humanity,  not  from  policy, 
but  merely  because  we  have  not  room  enough  to  hold  these  vic- 
tims of  the  absurdity  of  our  laws,  we  turn  loose  upon  the  public 
three  or  four  thousand  naked  wretches,  corrupted  by  the  hab- 
its, debased  by  the  ignominy  of  a  prison.  If  the  creditor  had  a 
right  to  those  carcasses  as  a  natural  security  for  his  property,  I 
am  sure  we  have  no  right  to  deprive  him  of  that  security.  J3ut 
if  the  few  pounds  of  ilesh  were  not  necessary  to  his  security, 
we  had  not  a  right  to  detain  the  unfortunate  debtor,  without 
any  benefit  at  all  to  the  person  who  confined  him.  Take  it  as 
you  will,  we  commit  injustice.  Now  Lord  lieauchamp's  bill  in- 
tended to  do  deliberately,  and  with  great  caution  and  circum- 
spection, upon  each  several  case,  and  with  all  attention  to  the 
just  claimant,  what  Acts  of  grace  do  in  a  much  greater  meas- 
ure, and  with  very  little  care,  caution,  or  deliberation. 

I  suspect  that  here,  too,  if  we  contrive  to  oppose  this  bill,  we 
shall  be  found  in  a  struggle  against  the  nature  of  things.  For, 
as  we  grow  enlightened,  the  public  will  not  bear,  for  any  length 
of  time,  to  pay  for  the  maintenance  of  whole  armies  of  prison- 
ers, nor,  at  their  own  expense,  submit  to  keep  jails  as  a  sort  of 
garrisons,  merely  to  fortify  the  absurd  principle  of  making  men 
judges  in  their  own  cause.  For  credit  has  little  or  no  concern 
in  this  cruelty.  I  speak  in  a  commercial  assembly.  You  know 
that  credit  is  given  because  capital  must  be  employed;  that  men 
calculate  the  chances  of  insolvency;  and  they  either  withhold 
the  credit,  or  make  the  debtor  pay  the  risk  in  the  price.  The 
counting-house  has  no  alliance  with  the  jail.  Holland  under- 
stands trade  as  well  as  we,  and  she  has  done  much  more  than 
this  obnoxious  bill  intended  to  do.  There  was  not,  when  Mr. 
Howard  visited  Holland,  more  than  one  prisoner  for  debt  in  the 


SPEECH  TO  THE  ELECTORS  OF  BRISTOL.  129 

great  city  of  Rotterdam.  Although  Lord  Beauchamp's  Act 
(which  was  previous  to  this  bill,  and  intended  to  feel  the  way 
for  it)  has  already  preserved  liberty  to  thousands,  and  though 
it  is  not  three  years  since  the  last  Act  of  grace  passed,  yet,  by 
Mr.  Howard's  last  account,  there  were  near  three  thousand 
again  in  jail.  I  cannot  name  this  gentlemen  without  remarking 
that  his  labours  and  writings  have  done  much  to  open  the  eyes 
and  hearts  of  mankind.  He  has  visited  all  Europe,  not  to  sur- 
vey the  sumptuousness  of  palaces  or  the  stateliness  of  temples, 
not  to  make  accurate  measurements  of  the  remains  of  ancient 
grandeur  nor  to  form  a  scale  of  the  curiosity  of  modern  art,  not 
to  collect  medals  or  collate  manuscripts, — but  to  dive  into  the 
depths  of  dungeons,  to  plunge  into  the  infections  of  hospitals, 
to  survey  the  mansions  of  sorrow  and  pain,  to  take  the  gauge 
and  dimensions  of  misery,  depression,  and  contempt,  to  remem- 
ber the  forgotten,  to  attend  to  the  neglected,  to  visit  the  for- 
saken, and  to  compare  and  collate  the  distresses  of  all  men  in 
all  countries.  His  plan  is  original ;  and  it  is  as  full  of  genius 
as  it  is  of  humanity.  It  was  a  voyage  of  discovery,  a  circum- 
navigation of  charity.  Already  the  benefit  of  his  labour  is  felt 
more  or  less  in  every  country ;  1  hope  he  will  anticipate  his 
final  reward  by  seeing  all  its  effects  fully  realized  in  his  own. 
He  will  receive,  not  by  retail,  but  in  gross,  the  reward  of  those 
who  visit  the  prisoner  ;  and  he  lias  so  forestalled  and  monopo- 
lized this  branch  of  charity,  that  there  will  be,  I  trust,  little 
room  to  merit  by  such  acts  of  benevolence  hereafter. 

Nothing  now  remains  to  trouble  you  with  but  the  fourth 
charge  against  me, —  the  business  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  It 
is  a  business  closely  connected  with  the  rest.  They  are  all  on 
one  and  the  same  principle.  My  little  scheme  of  conduct,  such 
as  it  is,  is  all  arranged.  I  could  do  nothing  but  what  I  have 
done  <m  this  subject,  without  confounding  the  whole  train  of 
my  ideas  and  disturbing  the  whole  order  of  my  life.  Gentle- 
men, I  ought  to  apologize  to  you  for  seeming  to  think  any  thing 
at  all  necessary  to  be  said  upon  this  matter.  The  calumny  is 
litter  to  be  scrawled  with  the  midnight  chalk  of  incendiaries, 
with  "Xo  Popery,"  on  walls  and  doors  of  devoted  houses,  than 
to  be  mentioned  in  any  civilized  company.  I  had  heard  that 
tiie  spirit  of  discontent  on  that  subject  was  very  prevalent  here. 
AVith  pleasure  I  find  that  I  have  been  grossly  misinformed.  If 
is  at  all  in  this  city,  the  laws  have  crushed  its  exertions, 
and  our  morals  have  shamed  its  appearance  in  daylight.  I 
have  pursued  this  spirit  wherever  I  could  trace  it ;  but  it  still 
fled  from  me.  It  was  a  ghost  which  all  had  heard  of,  but  none 
had  seen.  None  would  acknowledge  that  he  thought  the  pub- 
lic proceeding  with  regard  to  our  Catholic  dissenters  to  be 


130  BURKE. 

blamable  ;  but  several  were  sorry  it  had  made  an  ill  impression 
upon  others,  and  that  my  interest  was  hurt  by  my  share  in  the 
business.  I  find  with  satisfaction  and  pride,  that  not  above 
four  or  five  in  this  city  (and  I  dare  say  these  misled  by  some 
gross  misrepresentation)  have  signed  that  symbol  of  delusion 
and  bond  of  sedition,  that  libel  on  the  national  religion  and 
English  character,  the  Protestant  Association.  It  is,  there- 
fore, Gentlemen,  not  by  way  of  cure,  but  of  prevention,  and 
lest  the  arts  of  wicked  men  may  prevail  over  the  integrity  of 
any  one  amongst  us,  that  I  think  it  necessary  to  open  to  you 
the  merits  of  this  transaction  pretty  much  at  large  ;  and  I  beg 
your  patience  upon  it ;  for,  although  the  reasonings  that  have 
been  used  to  depreciate  the  Act  are  of  little  force,  and  though 
the  authority  of  the  men  concerned  in  this  ill  design  is  not  very 
imposing,  yet  the  audaciousness  of  these  conspirators  against 
the  national  honour,  and  the  extensive  wickedness  of  their  at- 
tempts, have  raised  persons  of  no  little  importance  to  a  degree 
of  evil  eminence,  and  imparted  a  sort  of  sinister  dignity  to  pro- 
ceedings that  had  their  origin  in  only  the  meanest  and  blindest 
malice. 

In  explaining  to  you  the  proceedings  of  Parliament  which 
have  been  complained  of,  I  will  state  to  you, —  first,  the  thing 
that  was  done, — next,  the  persons  who  did  it,— and  lastly,  the 
grounds  and  reasons  upon  which  the  legislature  proceeded  in 
this  deliberate  act  of  public  justice  and  public  prudence. 

Gentlemen,  the  condition  of  our  nature  is  such  that  we  buy 
our  blessings  at  a  price.  The  reformation,  one  of  the  gn 
periods  of  human  improvement,  was  a  time  of  trouble  and  con- 
fusion. The  vast  structure  of  superstition  and  tyranny  which 
had  been  for  ages  in  rearing,  and  which  was  combined  with  the 
interest  of  the  great  and  of  the  many,  which  was  moulded  into 
the  laws,  the  manners,  and  civil  institutions  of  nations,  and 
blended  with  the  frame  and  policy  of  States,  could  not  be 
brought  to  the  ground  without  a  fearful  struggle  ;  nor  could  it 
fall  without  a  violent  concussion  of  itself  and  all  about  it. 
When  this  great  revolution  was  attempted  in  a  more  regular 
mode  by  government,  it  was  opposed  by  plots  and  seditions  of 
the  people  ;  when  by  popular  efforts,  it  was  repressed  as  rebel- 
lion by  the  hand  of  power;  and  bloody  executions  (often 
bloodily  returned)  marked  the  whole  of  its  progress  through  all 
its  stages.  The  affairs  of  religion,  which  are  no  longer  heard  of 
in  the  tumult  of  our  present  contentions,  made  a  principal 
ingredient  in  the  wars  and  politics  of  that  time  :  the  enthu- 
siasm of  religion  threw  a  gloom  over  the  politics  ;  and  political 
interests  poisoned  and  perverted  the  spirit  of  religion  upon  all 
sides.  The  Protestant  religion,  in  that  violent  struggle,  in- 


SPEECH  TO  THE  ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  131 

fected,  as  the  Popish  had  been  before,  by  worldly  interests  and 
worldly  passions,  became  a  persecutor  in  its  turn,  sometimes 
of  the  new  sect*,  which  carried  their  own  principles  further 
than  it  was  convenient  to  the  original  reformers,  and  always  of 
the  body  from  whom  they  parted :  and  this  persecuting  spirit 
arose,  not  only  from  the  bitterness  of  retaliation,  but  from  the 
merciless  policy  of  fear. 

It  was  long  before  the  spirit  of  true  piety  and  true  wisdom, 
involved  in  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  could  be  depu- 
rated from  the  dregs  and  feculence-  of  the  contention  with 
which  it  was  carried  through.  However,  until  this  be  done, 
the  Reformation  is  not  complete  :  and  those  who  think  them- 
selves good  Protestants,  from  their  animosity  to  others,  are  in 
that  respect  no  Protestants  at  all.  It  was  at  first  thought 
necessary,  perhaps,  to  oppose  to  Popery  another  Popery,  to  get 
the  better  of  it.  Whatever  was  the  cause,  laws  were  made  in 
many  countries,  and  in  this  kingdom  in  particular,  against 
Papists,  which  are  as  bloody  as  any  of  those  which  had  been 
enacte.1  by  the  Popish  princes  and  States:  and  where  those 
laws  \\ere  not  bloody,  in  my  opinion  they  were  worse ;  as  they 
were  slow,  cruel  outrages  on  our  nature,  and  kept  men  alive 
only  to  insult  in  their  persons  every  one  of  the  rights  and 
feelings  of  humanity.  I  pass  those  statutes,  because  I  would 
spare  your  pious  ears  the  repetition  of 'such  shocking  things  ; 
and  I  come  to  that  particular  law  tho  repeal  of  which  has  pro- 
duced s<>  many  unnatural  and  unexpected  consequences. 

A  -tat ute  was  fabricated  in  the  year  ir>(.)!>,  by  which  the  saying 

a  church  service  in  the  Latin  tongue,  not  exactly  the 
same  as  our  liturgy,  but  very  near  it,  and  containing  no  offence 
whatsoever  against  the  laws,  or  against  good  morals)  was  forged 
into  a  crime,  punishable  with  perpetual  imprisonment.  The 
teaching  school,  an  useful  and  virtuous  occupation,  even  the 
teaching  in  a  private  family,  was  in  every  Catholic  subjected  to 
the  .~;ime  miproport ioned  punishment.  Your  industry,  and  the, 
bread  of  your  children,  was  taxed  for  a  pecuniary  reward  to 
stimulate  avarice  to  do  what  Nature  refused,  to  inform  and 

ute  on  this  law.  Every  Roman  Catholic  was,  under  the 
same  Act,  to  forfeit  his  estate  to  his  nearest  Protestant  relation, 
until,  through  a  profession  of  what  he  did  not  believe,  he  rc- 

<l  by  his  hypocrisy  what  the  law  had  transferred  to  the 
kinsman  as  the  recompense  of  his  profligacy.  When  thus 
turned  out  of  doors  from  his  paternal  estate,  he  was  disabled 
from  acquiring  any  other  by  any  industry,  donation,  or  char- 
ity ;  but  was  rendered  a  foreigner  in  his  native  land,  only  be- 
cause he  retained  the  religion,  along  with  the  property,  handed 


132  BURKE. 

down  to  him  from  those  who  had  been  the  old  inhabitants  of 
that  land  before  him. 

Does  any  one  who  hears  me  approve  this  scheme  of  things,  or 
think  there  is  common  justice,  common  sense,  or  common  hon- 
esty in  any  part  of  it?  If  any  does,  let  him  say  it,  and  I  am 
ready  to  discuss  the  point  with  temper  and  candour.  But  in- 
stead of  approving,  I  perceive  a  virtuous  indignation  beginning 
to  rise  in  your  minds  on  the  mere  cold  stating  of  the  statute. 

But  what  will  you  feel,  when  you  know  from  history  how  this 
statute  passed,  and  what  were  the  motives,  and  what  the  mode 
of  making  it?  A  party  in  this  nation,  enemies  to  the  system  of 
the  Revolution,  were  in  opposition  to  the  government  of  King 
William.  They  knew  that  our  glorious  deliverer  was  an  enemy 
to  all  persecution.  They  knew  that  he  came  to  free  us  from 
slavery  and  Popery,  out  of  a  country  where  a  third  of  the  peo- 
ple are  contented  Catholics  under  a  Protestant  government. 
He  came  with  a  part  of  his  army  composed  of  those  very  Catho- 
lics, to  overset  the  power  of  a  Popish  prince.  Such  is  the  effect 
of  a  tolerating  spirit ;  and  so  much  is  liberty  served  in  every 
way,  and  by  all  persons,  by  a  manly  adherence  to  its  own  prin- 
ciples. Whilst  freedom  is  true  to  itself,  every  thing  becomes 
subject  to  it,  and  its  very  adversaries  are  an  instrument  in  its 
hands. 

The  party  I  speak  of  (like  some  amongst  us  who  would  dis- 
parage the  best  friends  of  their  country)  resolved  to  make  the 
King  either  violate  his  principles  of  toleration  or  incur  the  odi- 
um of  protecting  Papists.  They  therefore  brought  in  this  bill, 
and  made  it  purposely  wicked  and  absurd  that  it  might  be  re- 
jected. The  then  Court  party,  discovering  their  game,  turned 
the  tables  on  them,  and  returned  their  bill  to  them  stuffed  with 
still  greater  absurdities,  that  its  loss  might  lie  upon  its  original 
authors.  They,  finding  their  own  ball  thrown  back  to  them, 
kicked  it  back  again  to  their  adversaries.  And  thus  this  Act, 
loaded  with  the  double  injustice  of  two  parties,  neither  of 
whom  intended  to  pass  what  they  hoped  the  other  would  be 
persuaded  to  reject,  went  through  the  legislature,  contrary  to 
the  real  wish  of  all  parts  of  it,  and  of  all  the  parties  that  com- 
posed it.  In  this  manner  these  insolent  and  profligate  factions, 
as  if  they  were  playing  with  balls  and  counters,  made  a  sj 
the  fortunes  and  the  liberties  of  their  fellow-creaturos.  Other 
Acts  of  persecution  have  been  Acts  of  malice.  This  was  a 
subversion  of  justice  from  wantonness  and  petulance.  Look 
into  the  history  of  Bishop  Burnet.  He  is  a  witness  without 
exception. 

The  effects  of  the  Act  have  been  as  mischievous  as  its  origin 
was  ludicrous  and  shameful.  From  that  time,  every  person  of 


SPEECH  TO   THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  133 

that  communion,  lay  and  ecclesiastic,  has  been  obliged  to  fly 
from  the  face  of  day.  The  clergy,  concealed  in  garrets  of  pri- 
vate houses,  or  obliged  to  take  a  shelter  (hardly  safe  to  them- 
selves, but  infinitely  dangerous  to  their  country)  under  the 
privileges  of  foreign  ministers,  officiated  as  their  servants  and 
under  their  protection.  The  whole  body  of  the  Catholics,  con- 
demned to  beggary  and  ignorance  in  their  native  land,  have 
been  obliged  to  learn  the  principles  of  letters,  at  the  hazard  of 
all  their  other  principles,  from  the.  charity  of  your  enemies. 
They  have  been  taxed  to  their  ruin  at  the  pleasure  of  necessitous 
and  profligate  relations,  and  according  to  the  measure  of  their  ne- 
-ity  and  profligacy.  Examples  of  this  are  many  and  affect- 
ing. Some  of  them  are  known  by  a  friend  who  stands  near  me 
in  this  hall.  It  is  but  six  or  seven  years  since  a  clergyman,  of 
the  name  of  Malony,  a  man  of  morals,  neither  guilty  nor  ac- 
cused of  any  thing  noxious  to  the  State,  was  condemned  to  per- 
petual imprisonment  for  exercising  the  functions  of  his  religion; 
and.  after  lying  in  jail  two  or  three  years,  was  relieved  by  the 
mercy  of  government  from  perpetual  imprisonment,  on  condi- 
tion of  perpetual  banishment.  A  brother  of  the  Earl  of 
Shrewsbury,  a  Talbot.  a  name  respectable  in  this  country 
whilst  its  glory  is  any  part  of  its  concern,  was  hauled  to  the  bar  of 
the  Old  r.ailey,  annuig  common  felons,  and  only  escaped  the  same 
doom  either  by  some  error  in  the  process,  or  that  the  wretch 
who  brought  him  there  could  not  correctly  describe  his  person, 
—  I  now  forget  which.  In  short,  the  persecution  would  never 
have  relented  for  a  moment,  if  the  judges,  superseding  (though 
with  an  ambiguous  example)  the  strict  rule  of  their  artificial 
duty  by  the  higher  obligation  of  their  conscience,  did  not  con- 
stantly throw  every  dilliculty  in  the  way  of  such  informers. 
But  so  ineffectual  is  the  power  of  legal  evasion  against  legal 
iniquity,  that  it  was  but  the  other  day  that  a  lady  of  condition, 
beyond  the  middle  of  life,  was  on  the  point  of  being  stripped  of 
her  whole  fortune  by  a  near  relation  to  whom  she  had  been  a 
friend  and  benefactor;  and  she  must  have  been  totally  ruined, 
without  a  power  of  redress  or  mitigation  from  the  courts  of  law, 
had  not  the  legislature  itself  rushed  in,  and  by  a  special  Act  of 
Parliament  rescued  her  from  the  injustice  of  its  own  statutes. 
One,  of  the  Arts  authorizing  such  things  was  that  which  we  in 
part  repealed,  knowing  what  our  duty  was,  and  doing  that  duty 
a*  men  of  honour  and  virtue,  as  good  Protestants,  and  as  good 
citixens.  Let  him  stand  forth  that  disapproves  what  we  have 
done  ! 

Gentlemen,  bad  laws  are  the  worst  sort  of  tyranny.  In  such 
a  country  as  this  they  are  of  all  bad  things  the  worst, —  worse 
by  far  thai^piiy  where  else  ;  and  they  derive  a  particular  malig- 


134  BURKE. 

nity  even  from  the  wisdom  and  soundness  of  the  rest  of  our 
institutions.  For  very  obvious  reasons  you  cannot  trust  the 
Crown  with  a  dispensing  power  over  any  of  your  laws.  How- 
ever, a  government,  be  it  as  bad  as  it  may,  will,  in  the  exercise 
of  a  discretionary  power,  discriminate  times  and  persons,  and 
will  not  ordinarily  pursue  any  man,  when  its  own  safety  is  not 
concerned.  A  mercenary  informer  knows  no  distinction.  l"n- 
der  such  a  system,  the  obnoxious  people  are  slaves  not  only  to 
the  government,  but  they  live  at  the  mercy  of  every  indi- 
vidual ;  they  are  at  once  the  slaves  of  the  whole  community 
and  of  every  part  of  it ;  and  the  worst  and  most  unmerciful 
men  are  those  on  whose  goodness  they  most  depend. 

In  this  situation,  men  not  only  shrink  from  the  frowns  of  a 
stern  magistrate,  but  they  are  obliged  to  tly  from  their  very 
species.  The  seeds  of  destruction  are  sown  in  civil  intercourse, 
in  social  habitudes.  The  blood  of  wHblesome  kindred  is  in- 
fected. Their  tables  and  beds  are  surrounded  with  snares. 
All  the  means  given  by  Providence  to  make  life  safe  and  com- 
fortable are  perverted  into  instruments  of  terror  and  torment. 
This  species  of  universal  subserviency,  that  makes  the  very 
servant  who  waits  behind  your  chair  the  arbiter  of  your  life  and 
fortune,  has  such  a  tendency  to  degrade  and  abase  mankind, 
and  to  deprive  them  of  that  assured  and  liberal  state  of  mind 
which  alone  can  make  us  what  we  ought  to  be,  that  I  vow  to 
God  I  would  sooner  bring  myself  to  put  a  man  to  immediate 
death  for  opinions  I  disliked,  and  so  get  rid  of  the  man  and  his 
opinions  at  once,  than  to  fret  him  with  a  feverish  being,  tainted 
with  the  jail-distemper  of  a  contagious  servitude,  to  keep  him 
above  ground  an  animated  mass  of  putrefaction,  corrupted 
himself,  and  corrupting  all  about  him. 

The  Act  repealed  was  of  this  direct  tendency ;  and  it  was 
made  in  the  manner  which  I  have  related  to  you.  I  will  now 
tell  you  by  whom  the  bill  of  repeal  was  brought  into  Parlia- 
ment. I  find  it  has  been  industriously  given  out  in  this  city 
(from  kindness  tome,  unquestionably)  that  I  was  the  mover  or 
the  seconder.  The  fact  is,  I  did  not  once  open  my  lips  on  the 
subject  during  the  whole  progress  of  the  bill.  I  do  not  say  this 
as  disclaiming  my  share  in  that  measure.  Very  far  from  it. 
1  inform  you  of  this  fact,  lest  I  should  seem  to  arrogate  to 
myself  the  merits  which  belong  to  others.  To  have  been  the 
man  chosen  out  to  redeem  our  fellow-citizens  from  shivery,  to 
purify  our  laws  from  absurdity  and  injustice,  and  to  cleanse  our 
religion  from  the  blot  and  stain  of  persecution,  would  be  an 
honour  and  happiness  to  which  my  wishes  would  undoubtedly 
aspire,  but  to  which  nothing  but  my  wishes  could  possibly  ha\  e 
entitled  me.  That  great  work  was  iu  hands  in  every  iv>p- 


SPEECH   TO   THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  1H5 

far  better  qualified  than  mine.    The  mover  of  the  bill  was  Sir 
George  Savile. 

When  an  act  of  great  and  signal  humanity  was  to  be  done, 
and  done  with  all  the  weight  and  authority  that  belonged  to  it, 
the  world  could  cast  its  eyes  upon  none  but  him.    I  hope  that 
few  tilings  which  have  a  tendency  to  bless  or  to  adorn  life  have 
wholly  escaped  my  observation  in  my  passage  through  it.     I 
have  sought  the  acquaintance  of  lhat  gentleman,  and  have  seen 
him  in  all  situations.     lie  is  a  true  genius  ;  with  an  understand- 
ing vigorous,  and  acute,  ;md  ivlined,  and  distinguishing  even 
to  excess;  ami  illuminated  with  a  most  unbounded,  peculiar, 
and  original  cast  of    imagination.      AVith  these  lie  possesses 
many  external  and   instrumental   advantage?.  :    and   he  makes 
use  of  them  all.     His  fortune  is  among  the  largest,— a  fortune 
which,  wholly  unincinnbered  as    it  is   with  one  single  charge 
from  luxury,  vanity,  or  oxce-s,  sinks  under  the-  benevolence .of 
its  dispenser.     This  private  benevolence,  expanding  itself  into 
patriotism,  renders  his  whole  being  the  estate  of  the  public,  in 
•which  he  has  not    reserved  a  IK  '•//////,//  for  himself  of  profit, 
diversion,  or   relaxation.     During  the  session  the  lirst    in  and 
the  last  out  of   the    House  of   ('ominous,   he  passes  from  the 
senate  to  the  camp;  and.  seldom  seeing  the  seat  of  his  an 
tors,  he  is  always  in  Parliament   1o  serve  his  country,  or  in   the 
field  to  defend  it.     Hut  in  all  well-wrought  compositions  some 
particulars  stand  out    mop-  eminently  than   the  rest;  and  the 
things  which  will  carry  his  name  to  posterity  are  his  two  bills  : 
I  mean  that  for  a  limitation  of  the  claims  of  the  Crown  upon 
landed  estates,  and  this  for  the  relief  of  the   Uoman  Catholics. 
My  the  former   he  has  emancipated  property;  by  the  latter  he 
has  quieted  conscience  ;  and  by  both  he  has  taught  that  grand 
On  to  government  and  subject,— no  longer  to  regard  each 
other  as  adverse  part  ies. 

Such  was  the  mover  of  the  Act  that  is  complained  of  by  men 
who  are  not  quite  so  irood  as  he  is,— an  Act   most   assuredly  not 
brought  in  by  him  from  any  partiality  to  that  sect  which  is  the 
object  of  it.     For *nQOHg  his  faults  I   really  e;innot  help  reckon- 
ing ;i  greater  degree  of  prejndic"  :ig:iinst  that  people  than  be- 
comes so  wise  a  man.     I  know  that  lie  inclines  to  a  sort  of  dis- 
.    mixed    with    a   considerable   degree   of    asperity,    to  the 
in;  and  he  has  few,  or  rather  no  habits  with  any  of  its 
U'hat    he   has   done  was   on   quite  other   motives. 
The  motives    were  these,   which   h"  dec-hired   in    his  excellent 
^peech  on  his  motion  for  the  bill,---  namely,  \\\^  extreme  zeal  to 
the  Protestant  religion,  which  he  thought  utterly  disgraced  by 
tin-    \ctof  lO'.K) ;  and  his  rooted  hat  red  to  all  kind  of  oppression, 
under  any  colour,  or  upon  any  pretence  whatsoever. 


136  BURKE. 

The  seconder  was  worthy  of  the  mover  and  the  motion.  I 
was  not  the  seconder;  it  was  Mr.  Dunning,  recorder  of  this 
city.3  I  shall  say  the  less  of  him,  because  his  near  relation  to 
you  makes  you  more  particularly  acquainted  with  his  merits. 
But  I  should  appear  little  acquainted  with  them,  or  little  sensi- 
ble of  them,  if  I  could  utter  his  name  on  this  occasion  without 
expressing  my  esteem  for  his  character.  I  am  not  afraid  of 
offending  a  most  learned  body,  and  most  jealous  of  its  reputa- 
tion for  that  learning,  when  I  say  he  is  the  first  of  his  profes- 
sion. It  is  a  point  settled  by  those  who  settle  every  thing  else  : 
and  I  must  add  (what  I  am  enabled  to  say  from  my  own  long 
and  close  observation)  that  there  is  not  a  man  of  any  profes- 
sion, or  in  any  situation,  of  a  more  erect  and  independent 
spirit,  of  a  more  proud  honour,  a  more  manly  mind,  a  more 
firm  and  determined  integrity.  Assure  yourselves,  that  the 
names  of  two  such  men  will  bear  a  gpeat  load  of  prejudice  in 
the  other  scale  before  they  can  be  entirely  outweighed. 

With  this  mover  and  this  seconder  agreed  the  whole  House  of 
Commons,  the  wJwle  House  of  Lords,  the  whole  Bench  of 
Bishops,  the  King,  the  Ministry,  the  opposition,  all  the  dis- 
tinguished clergy  of  the  Establishment,  all  the  eminent  lights 
(for  they  were  consulted)  of  the  dissenting  churches.  This 
according  voice  of  national  wisdom  ought  to  be  listened 
to  with  reverence.  To  say  that  all  these  descriptions  of  Eng- 
lishmen unanimously  concurred  in  a  scheme  for  introducing  the 
Catholic  religion,  or  that  none  of  them  understood  the  nature 
and  effects  of  what  they  were  doing  so  well  as  a  few  obscure 
clubs  of  people  whose  names  you  never  heard  of,  is  shamelessly 
absurd.  Surely  it  is  paying  a  miserable  compliment  to  the 
religion  we  profess,  to  suggest  that  every  thing  eminent  in  the 
kingdom  is  indifferent  or  even  adverse  to  that  religion,  and 
that  its  security  is  wholly  abandoned  to  the  zeal  of  those  who 
have  nothing  but  their  zeal  to  distinguish  them.  In  weighing 
this  unanimous  concurrence  of  whatever  the  nation  has  to 
boast  of,  I  hope  you  will  recollect  that  all  these  concurring 
parties  do  by  no  means  love  one  another  enough  to  agree  in 
any  point  which  was  not  both  evidently  and  importantly  right. 

To  prove  this,  to  prove  that  the  measure  was  both  clearly  and 
materially  proper,  I  will  next  lay  before  you  (as  I  promised)  the 

3  This  Mr.  Dunning,  though  Recorder  of  Bristol,  was  not  a  member  of  Par. 
liamcut  lor  th:it  city.  He  it  was  who,  some  time  be  love  the  delivery  of  this 
s-pL'i'ch,  moved  the  famous  resolution  declaring  "That  the  influence  of  the 
Crown  has  increased,  is  increasing,  and  ought  to  be  diminished";  which  made 
the  first  practicable  breach  in  the  policy  of  the  Court,  lie  was  a  lawyer  of  cmi. 
nent  ability,  an  ungraceful  but  powerful  debater,  and  was  afterwards  mado 
Lord  Ashburton. 


SPEECH  TO   THE   ELECTORS   OF  BRISTOL.  137 

political  grounds  and  reasons  for  the  repeal  of  that  penal 
statute,  and  the  motives  to  its  repeal  at  that  particular  time. 

Gentlemen,  America. When  the  English  nation  seemed 

to  be  dangerously,  if  not  irrecoverably  divided,— when  one, 
and  that  the  most  growing  branch,  was  torn  from  the  parent 
stock,  and  ingrafted  on  the  power  of  France,  a  great  terror  fell 
upon  this  kingdom.  On  a  sudden  we  awakened  from  our  dreams 
of  conquest,  and  saw  ourselves  threatened  with  an  immediate 
invasion,  which  we  were  at  that  time  very  ill  prepared  to  resist. 
You  remember  the  cloud  that  gloomed  over  us  all.  In  that 
hour  of  our  dismay,  from  the  bottom  of  the  hiding-places  into 
which  the  indiscriminate  rigour  of  our  statutes  had  driven 
them,  came  out  the  body  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  They 
appeared  before  the  steps  of  a  tottering  throne,  with  one  of  the 
most  sober,  measured,  steady,  and  dutiful  addresses  that  was 
ever  presented  to  the  Crown.  It  was  no  holiday  ceremony,  no 
anniversary  compliment  of  parade  and  show.  It  was  signed  by 
almost  every  gentleman  of  that  persuasion,  of  note  or  property, 
in  England.  At  such  a  crisis,  nothing  but  a  decided  resolution 
to  stand  or  fall  with  their  country  could  have  dictated  such  an 
address,  the  direct  tendency  of  which  was  to  cut  off  all  retreat, 
and  to  render  them  peculiarly  obnoxious  to  an  invader  of  their 
own  communion.  The  address  showed  what  I  long  languished 
to  see,  that  all  the  subjects  of  England  had  cast  off  all  foreign 
views  and  connections,  and  that  every  man  looked  for  his 
relief  from  every  grievance  at  the  hands  only  of  his  own  natu- 
ral government. 

It  was  necessary,  on  our  part,  that  the  natural  government 
should  show  itself  worthy  of  that  name.  It  was  necessary,  at 
the  crisis  I  speak  of,  that  the  supreme  power  of  the  State  should 
meet  the  conciliatory  dispositions  of  the  subject.  *To  delay 
protection  would  be  to  reject  allegiance.  And  why  should  it 
bo  rejected,  or  even  coldly  and  suspiciously  received?  If  any 

pendent  Catholic  State  should  choose  to  take  part  with 
this  kingdom  in  a  war  with  France  and  Spain,  that  bigot  (if  such 
a  bigot  could  be  found)  would  be  heard  with  little  respect,  who 
'ou Id  dream  of  objecting  his  religion  to  an  ally  whom  the  nation 
would  not  only  receive  with  its  freest  thanks,  but  purchase 
with  the  last  remains  of  its  exhausted  tn-asurc.  To  such  an 
ally  we  should  not  dare  to  whisper  a  single  syllable  of  those 
and  invidious  topics  upon  which  some  unhappy  men 
would  persuade  the  State  to  reject  the  duty  and  allegiance  of 

\vn  members.  Is  it,  then,  because  foreigners  are  in  a  con- 
dition to  set  our  malice  at  defiance,  that  with  tltcmw  are  will- 
iii'i  to  contract  mgagirmoiits  of  1'rieiidship,  and  to  keep  them 
with  fidelity  and  honour,  but  that,  because  we  conceive  some 


138  BURKE. 

descriptions  of  our  countrymen  are  not  powerful  enough  to  pun- 
ish our  malignity,  we  will  not,  permit  them  to  support  our  com- 
mon interest?  Is  it  on  that  ground  that  our  anger  is  to  be 
kindled  by  their  offered  kindness?  Is  it  on  that  ground  that 
they  are  to  be  subjected  to  penalties,  because  they  are  willing 
by  actual  merit  to  purge  themselves  from  imputed  crimes? 
Lest  by  an  adherence  to  the  cause  of  their  country  they  should 
acquire  a  title  to  fair  and  equitable  treatment,  are  we  resolved 
to  furnish  them  with  causes  of  eternal  enmity,  and  rather  sup- 
ply them  with  just  and  founded  motives  to  disaffection  than 
not  to  have  that,  disaffection  in  existence,  to  justify  an  oppres- 
sion which,  not  from  policy,  but  disposition,  we  have  predeter- 
mined to  exercise? 

AVhat  shadow  of  reason  could  bo  assigned,  why,  at  a  time 
when  the  most  Protestant  part  of  this  Protestant  empire  found 
it  for  its  advantage  to  unite  with  the  two  principal  Popish 
Stales,  to  unite  itself  in  the  closest  bonds  with  France  and 
Spain,  for  our  destruction,  that  we  should  refuse  to  unite 
with  our  own  Catholic  countrymen  for  our  own  preservation? 
Ought-  wo,  like  madmen,  to  tear  off  the  plasters  that  the  lenient 
hand  of  prudence  had  spread  over  the  wounds  and  gashes 
which  in  our  delirium  of  ambition  we  had  given  to  our  own 
body?  No  person  ever  reprobated  the  American  war  more 
than  I  did,  and  do,  and  even*  shall.  ]>ut  I  never  will  consent 
that  we  should  lay  additional,  voluntary  penalties  on  ourselves, 
for  a  fault  which  carries  but  too  much  of  its  own  punishment  in 
its  own  nature.  For  one,  I  was  delighted  with  the  proposal  of 
internal  peace.  1  accepted  the  blessing  with  thankfulness  and 
transport.  I  was  truly  happy  to  find  <>nr  good  effect  of  our  civil 
distractions,  —  that  they  had  put  an  end  to  all  religious  strife  and 
heart-burning  in  our  own  bowels.  What  must  be  the  senti- 
ments of  a  man  who  would  wish  to  perpetuate  domestic  hostil- 
ity when  the  causes  of  dispute  are  at,  an  end,  and  who,  crying 
out  for  peace  with  one  part  of  the  nation  on  the  most  humiliat- 
ing terms,  should  deny  it  to  those  who  offer  friendship  without 
any  terms  at  all? 

l>ut  if  I  was  unable  to  reconcile  such  a  denial  to  the  contracted 
principles  of  local  duty,  what  answer  could  I  give  to  the  broad 
claims  of  general  humanity?  I  confess  to  you  freely,  that  the 
sufferings  and  distresses  of  the  people  of  America  in  this  cruel 
war  have  at  times  affected  me  more  deeply  than  I  can  express. 
I  felt  every  gazette  of  triumph  as  a  blow  upon  my  heart,  which 
has  an  hundred  times  sunk  and  fainted  within  me  at  all  the  mis- 
chiefs brought  upon  those  who  bear  the  whole  brunt  of  war  in 
the  heart  of  their  country.  Yet  the  Americans  are  utter  .stran- 
gers to  me ;  a  nation  among  whom  I  am  not  sure  that  I  have  a 


SPEECH  TO   THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  139 

single  .acquaintance.  "Was  I  to  suffer  my  mind  to  be  so  unac- 
countably warped,  was  I  to  keep  such  iniquitous  weights  and 
measures  of  temper  and  of  reason,  as  to  sympathize  with  those 
who  are  in  open  rebellion  against  an  authority  which  I  respect, 
at  war  with  a  country  which  by  every  title  ought  to  be,  and  is, 
iear  to  me, — and  yet  to  have  no  feeling  at  all  for  the  hard- 
ships and  indignities  suffered  by  men  who  by  their  very  vicinity 
are  bound  up  in  a  nearer  relation  to  us,  who  contribute  their 
share,  and  more  than  their  share,  to  the  common  prosperity, 
who  perform  the  common  offices  of  social  life,  and  who  obey 
the  laws,  to  the  full  as  well  as  I  do?  Gentlemen,  the  danger  to 
the  State  being  out  of  the  question,  (of  which,  let  me  tell  you, 
statesmen  themselves  are  apt  to  have  but  too  exquisite  a 
I  could  assign  no  one  reason  of  justice,  policy,  or  feeling, 
for  not  concurring  most  cordially,  as  most  cordially  I  did  con- 
cur, in  softening  some  part  of  that  shameful  servitude  under 
which  several  of  my  worthy  fellow-eiti/ens  were  groaning. 

Important  effects  followed  this  act  of  wisdom.  They  ap- 
peared at  home  and  abroad,  to  the  great  benefit  of  this  king- 
dom, and,  let  me  hope,  to  the  advantage  of  mankind  at  large. 
It  betokened  union  among  ourselves.  It  showed  soundness, 
even  on  the  part  of  the  persecuted,  which  generally  is  the  weak 
side  of  every  community.  But  its  m<»t  essential  operation  was 
not  in  England.  The  Act  was  immediately,  though  very  imper- 
i'ectly,  copied  in  Ireland;  and  this  imperfect  transcript  of  an 
imperfect  Act,  this  tirst  faint  sketch  of  toleration,  which  did 
little  more  than  disclose  a- principle  and  mark  out  a.  disposition, 
completed  in  a  most  wonderful  manner  the  reunion  to  the  State 
ol  ail  the  Catholics  of  that  country.  It  made  us  what  we  ought 
always  to  have  been,  one  family,  one  body,  one  heart  and  soul, 
against  the  family  combination  and  all  other  combinations  of 
our  enemies.  We  have  indeed  obligations  to  that  people  who 
received  such  small  benefits  with  so  much  gratitude,  and  for 
which  gratitude  and  attachment  to  us  I  am  afraid  they  have 
sniVered  not  a  little  in  other  places. 

I  dare  say  you  have  all  heard  of  the  privileges  indulged  to  the 
Irish  Catholics  residing  in  Spain.  You  have  likewise  heard 
with  what  circumstances  of  severity  they  have  been  lately  ex- 
!  from  the  seaports  of  that  kingdom,  driven  into  the  inland 
cities,  and  there  detained  as  a  sort  of  prisoners  of  State.  I  have 
good  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  the  zeal  to  our  government 
and  our  cause  (somewhat  indiscreetly  expressed  in  one  of  the 
addresses  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland)  which  lias  thus  drawn 
down  on  their  heads  the  indignation  of  the  Court  of  Madrid,  to 
the  inexpressible  loss  of  several  individuals,  and,  in  future,  per- 
haps to  the  great  detriment  of  the  whole  of  their  body.  Now 


140  BURKE. 

that  our  people  should  be  persecuted  in  Spain  for  their  attach- 
ment to  this  country,  and  persecuted  in  this  country  for  their 
supposed  enmity  to  us,  is  such  a  jarring  reconciliation  of  con- 
tradictory distresses,  is  a  thing  at  once  so  dreadful  and  ridicu- 
lous, that  no  malice  short  of  diabolical  would  wish  to  continue 
any  human  creatures  in  such  a  situation.  But  honest  men  will 
not  forget  either  their  merit  or  their  sufferings.  There  are  men 
(and  many,  I  trust,  there  are)  who,  out  of  love  to  their  country 
and  their  kind,  would  torture  their  invention  to  find  excuses  for 
the  mistakes  of  their  brethren,  and  who,  to  stifle  dissension, 
would  construe  even  doubtful  appearances  with  the  utmost 
favour:  such  men  will  never  persuade  themselves  to  be  ingen- 
ious and  refined  in  discovering  disaffection  and  treason  in  the 
manifest,  palpable  signs  of  suffering  loyalty.  Persecution  is  so 
unnatural  to  them,  that  they  gladly  snatch  the  very  first  oppor- 
tunity of  laying  aside  all  the  tricks  and  devices  of  penal  politics, 
and  of  returning  home,  after  all  their  irksome  and  vexatious 
wanderings,  to  our  natural  family  mansion,  to  the  grand  social 
principle  that  unites  all  men,  in  all  descriptions,  under  the 
shadow  of  an  equal  and  impartial  justice. 

Men  of  another  sort,  I  mean  the  bigoted  enemies  to  liberty, 
may,  perhaps,  in  their  politics,  make  no  account  of  the  good  or 
ill  affection  of  the  Catholics  of  England,  who  are  but  a  handful 
of  people,  (enough  to  torment,  but  not  enough  to  fear,)  perhaps 
not  so  many,  of  both  sexes  and  of  all  ages,  as  fifty  thousand. 
But,  Gentlemen,  it  is  possible  you  may  not  know  that  the  peo- 
ple of  that  persuasion  in  Ireland  amount  at  least  to  sixteen  or 
seventeen  hundred  thousand  souls.  I  do  not  at  all  exaggerate 
the  number.  A  nation  to  be  persecuted  !  Whilst  we  were  mas- 
ters of  the  sea,  embodied  with  America,  and  in  alliance  with 
half  the  powers  of  the  Continent,  we  might,  perhaps,  in  that  re- 
mote corner  of  Europe,  afford  to  tyrannize  with  impunity.  But 
there  is  a  revolution  in  our  affairs,  which  makes  it  prudent  to  be 
just.  In  our  late  awkward  contest  with  Ireland  about  trade,  had 
religion  been  thrown  in,  to  ferment  and  embitter  the  mass  of 
discontents,  the  consequences  might  have  been  truly  dreadful. 
But,  very  happily,  that  cause  of  quarrel  was  previously  quieted 
by  the  wisdom  of  the  Acts  I  am  commending. 

Even  in  England,  where  I  admit  the  danger  from  the  discon- 
tent of  that  persuasion  to  be  less  than  in  Ireland,  yet  even  here, 
had  we  listened  to  the  counsels  of  fanaticism  and  folly,  wo 
might  have  wounded  ourselves  very  deeply,  and  wounded  our- 
selves in  a  very  tender  part.  You  are  apprised  that  the  Catho- 
lics of  England  consist  mostly  of  our  best  manufacturers.  Had 
the  legislature  chosen,  instead  of  returning  their  declarations  of 
duty  with  correspondent  good  will,  to  drive  them  to  despair, 


SPEECH   TO  THE  ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  141 

there  is  a  country  at  their  very  door  to  which  they  would  be 
invited,— a  country  in  all  respects  as  good  as  ours,  and  with  the 
finest  cities  in  the  world  ready  built  to  receive  them.  And 
thus  the  bigotry  of  a  free  country,  and  in  an  enlightened  age, 
would  have  repeopled  the  cities  of  Flanders,  which,  in  the  dark- 
ness of  two  hundred  years  ago,  had  been  desolated  by  the  super- 
stition of  a  cruel  tyrant.  Our  manufactures  were  the  growth  of 
the  persecutions  in  the  Low  Countries.  What  a  spectacle  would 
it  be  to  Europe,  to  see  us  at  this  time  of  day  balancing  the 
account  of  tyranny  with  those  very  countries,  and  by  our  per- 
secutions driving  back  trade  and  manufacture,  as  a  sort  of 
vagabonds,  to  their  original  settlement !  But  I  trust  we  shall 
be  saved  this  last  of  disgraces. 

So  far  as  to  the  effect  of  the  Act  on  the  interests  of  this 
nation.  With  regard  to  the  interests  of  mankind  at  large,  I  am 
sure  the  benefit  was  very  considerable.  Long  before  this  Act, 
indeed,  the  spirit  of  toleration  began  to  gain  ground  in  Europe. 
In  Holland  the  third  part  of  the  people  are  Catholics  ;  they  live 
at  ease,  and  are  a  sound  part  of  the  State.  In  many  parts  of 
Germany,  Protestants  and  Papists  partake  the  same  cities,  the 
same  councils,  and  even  the  same  churches.  The  unbounded 
liberality  of  the  King  of  Prussia's  conduct  on  this  occasion  is 
known  to  all  the  world  ;  and  it  is  of  a  piece  with  the  other 
grand  maxims  of  his  reign.  The  magnanimity  of  the  Imperial 
Court,  breaking  through  the  narrow  principles  of  its  predeces- 
sors, has  indulged  its  Protestant  subjects,  not  only  with  prop- 
erty, with  worship,  with  liberal  education,  but  with  honours 
and  trusts,  Loth  civil  and  military.  A  worthy  Protestant 
gentleman  of  this  country  now  fills,  and  fills  with  credit,  an 
high  otliee  in  the  Austrian  Netherlands.  Even  the  Lutheran 
obstinacy  of  Sweden  has  thawed  at  length,  and  opened  a  tolera- 
tion to  all  religions.  I  know,  myself,  that  in  France  the  Prot- 

Mts  begin  to  be  at  rest.  The  army,  which  in  that  country  is 
every  thing,  is  open  to  them  ;  and  some  of  the  military  rewards 
and  decorations  which  the  laws  deny  are  supplied  by  others, 
to  make  the  service  acceptable  and  honourable.  The  first  min- 
i.-tt-r  of  finance  in  that  country  is  a  Protestant.  Two  years'  war 
without  a  tax  is  among  the  first  fruits  of  their  liberality. 
Tarnished  as  the  glory  of  this  nation  is,  and  far  as  it  has  waded 
into  the  shades  of  an  eclipse,  some  beams  of  its  former  illumin- 
ation still  play  upon  its  surface  ;  and  what  is  done  in  England 

,11  looked  to,  as  argument,  and  as  example.  It  is  certainly 
true,  that  no  law  of  this  country  ever  met  with  such  universal 
npplau.se  abroad,  or  was  so  likely  to  produce  the  perfection  of 
that  tolerating  spirit  which,  as  I  observed,  has  been  long 
gaining  ground  in  Europe :  for  abroad  it  was  universally  thought 


142  BURKE. 

that  we  had  done  \vhat  I  am  sorry  to  say  we  nad  not ;  they 
thought  we  had  granted  a  full  toleration.  That  opinion  was, 
however,  so  far  from  hurting  the  Protestant  cause,  that  I 
declare,  with  the  most  serious  solemnity,  my  firm  belief  that 
no  one  thing  done  for  these  fifty  years  past  was  so  likely  to 
prove  deeply  beneficial  to  our  religion  at  large  as  Sir  George 
Savile's  Act.  In  its  effects  it  was  "an  Act  for  tolerating  and 
protecting  Protestantism  throughout  Europe";  and  I  hope 
that  those  who  were  taking  steps  for  the  quiet  and  settlement 
of  our  Protestant  brethren  in  other  countries  will,  even  yet, 
rather  consider  the  steady  equity  of  the  greater  and  bettor 
part  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain  than  the  vanity  and  violence 
of  a  few. 

I  perceive,  Gentlemen,  by  the  manner  of  all  about  me,  that 
you  look  with  horror  on  the  wicked  clamour  which  has  been 
raised  on  this  subject,  and  that,  instead  of  an  apology  for  what 
was  done,  you  rather  demand  from  me  an  account,  why  the 
execution  of  the  scheme  of  toleration  was  not  made  more 
answerable  to  the  large  and  liberal  grounds  on  which  it  was 
taken  up.  The  question  is  natural  and  proper ;  and  I  remem- 
ber that  a  great  and  learned  magistrate,4  distinguished  for  his 
strong  and  systematic  understanding,  and  who  at  that  time  was 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  made  the  same  objection 
to  the  proceeding.  The  statutes,  as  they  now  stand,  are, 
without  doubt,  perfectly  absurd.  But  I  beg  leave  to  explain 
the  cause  of  this  gross  imperfection  in  the  tolerating  plan,  as 
well  and  as  shortly  as  I  am  able.  It  was  universally  thought 
that  the  session  ought  not  to  pass  over  without  doing  wmii-thinr/ 
in  this  business.  To  revise  the  whole  body  of  the  penal  stat- 
utes was  conceived  to  be  an  object  too  big  for  the  time.  The 
penal  statute,  therefore,  which  was  chosen  for  repeal  (chosen  to 
show  our  disposition  to  conciliate,  not  to  perfect  a  toleration) 
was  this  Act  of  ludicrous  cruelty  of  which  I  have  just  given  you 
the  history.  It  is  an  Act  which,  though  not  by  a  great  deal  so 
fierce  and  bloody  as  some  of  the  rest,  was  infinitely  more 
ready  in  the  execution.  It  was  the  Act  which  gave  the 
est  encouragement  to  those  pests  of  society,  mercenary  inform- 
ers and  interested  disturbers  of  household  peace  ;  and  it  was 
observed  with  truth,  that  the  prosecutions,  either  carried  to 
conviction  or  compounded,  for  many  years,  had  been  all  com- 
menced upon  that  Act.  It  was  said  that,  whilst  we  were 
deliberating  on  a  more  perfect  scheme,  the  spirit  of  the  age 

4  The  allusion  is  to  Thai-low,  who  was  transferred  to  tlie  House  of  Lords,  as 
Baron  Thurlow,  and  made  Lord  Chancellor,  in  1779.  At  the  time  the  Act  in 
question  was  passed,  he  was  Attorney  General,  ami  a  member  of  the  IIouso  of 
Commons. 


SPEECH  TO  THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  143 

would  never -come  up  to  the  execution  of  the  statutes  which 
remained,  especially  as  more  steps,  and  a  cooperation  of  more 
minds  and  powers,  were  required  towards  a  mischievous  use  of 
them  than  for  the  execution  of  the  Act  to  be  repealed  ;  that  it 
was  better  to  unravel  this  texture  from  below  than  from  above, 
beginning  with  the  latest,  which,  in  general  practice,  is  the 
severest  evil.  It  was  alleged  that  this  slow  proceeding  would 
be  attended  with  the  advantage  of  a  progressive  experience  ; 
and  that  the  people  would  grow  reconciled  to  toleration,  when 
they  should  lind,  by  the  effects,  that  justice  was  not  so  irrecon- 
cilable an  enemy  to  convenience  as  they  had  imagined. 

These,  Gentlemen,  were  the  reasons  why  we  left  this  good 
work  in  the  rude,  unfinished  state  in  which  good  works  are  com- 
monly left,  through  the  tame  circumspection  with  which  a  timid 
prudence  so  frequently  enervates  beneficence.  In  doing  good, 
we  are  generally  cold  and  languid  and  sluggish,  and  of  all  things 
afraid  of  being  too  much  in  the  right.  But  the  works  of  malice 
and  injustice  are  quite  in  another  style.  They  are  finished  with 
a  bold,  masterly  hand,  touched  as  they  are  with  the  spirit  of 
those  vehement  passions  that  call  forth  all  our  energies,  when- 
ever we  oppress  and  persecute. 

Thus  this  matter  was  left  for  the  time,  with  a  full  determina- 
tion in  Parliament  not  to  suffer  other  and  worse  statutes  to 
remain  for  the  purpose  of  counteracting  the  benefits  proposed 
by  the  repeal  of  one  penal  law:  for  nobody  then  dreamed  of 
defending  what  was  done  as  a  benefit,  on  the  ground  of  its  being 
no  benefit  at  all.  AVe  were  not  then  ripe  for  so  mean  a  subter- 
fuge. 

I  do  not  wish  to  go  over  the  horrid  scene  that  was  afterwards 
acted.  Would  to  (rod  it  could  be  expunged  for  ever  from  the 
annals  of  this  country !  But  since  it  must  subsist  for  our  shame, 
let  it  subsi-t  for  our  instruction.  In  the  year  1780  there  were 
found  in  this  nation  men  deluded  enough,  (for  I  give  the  whole 
to  their  delusion,)  on  pretences  of  zeal  and  piety,  without  any 
sort  of  provocation  whatsoever,  real  or  pretended,  to  make  a 
d<-]. crate  attempt,  which  would  have  consumed  all  the  glory 
and  power  of  this  country  in  the  Humes  of  London,  and  buried 
all  law,  order,  and  religion  under  the  ruins  of  the  metropolis  of 
the  Protestant  world.  Whether  all  this  mischief  done,  or  in  the 
direct  train  of  doing,  was  in  their  original  scheme,  I  cannot  say; 
1  hope  it  was  not:  but  this  would  have  been  the  unavoidable 
consequence  of  their  proceedings,  had  not  the  flames  they  had 
lighted  up  in  their  fury  been  extinguished  in  their  blood.5 

f>  In  tlii.s  part  of  the  speech,  Burke  is  referring  to  what  are  known  as  the 
Lord  George  Gordon  riots,  which  took  place  in  the  June  preceding.  Lord 


H4  BUEKE. 

All  the  time  that  this  horrid  scene  was  acting,  or  avenging,  as 
well  as  for  some  time  before,  and  ever  since,  the  wicked  instiga- 
tors of  this  unhappy  multitude,  guilty,  with  every  aggravation, 
of  all  their  crimes,  and  screened  in  a  cowardly  darkness  from 
their  punishment,  continued,  without  interruption,  pity,  or  re- 
morse, to  blow  up  the  blind  rage  of  the  populace  with  a  contin- 
ued blast  of  pestilential  libels,  which  infected  and  poisoned  the 
very  air  we  breathed  in. 

The  main  drift  of  all  the  libels  and  all  the  riots  was,  to  force 
Parliament  (to  persuade  us  was  hopeless)  into  an  act  of  national 
perfidy  which  has  no  example.  For,  Gentlemen,  it  is  proper 
you  should  all  know  what  infamy  we  escaped  by  refusing  that 
repeal,  for  a  refusal  of  which,  it  seems,  I,  among  others,  stand 
somewhere  or  other  accused.  When  we  took  uway,  on  the  mo- 
tives which  I  had  the  honour  of  stating  to  you,  a  few  of  the  in- 
numerable penalties  upon  an  oppressed  and  injured  people,  the 
relief  was  not  absolute,  but  given  on  a  stipulation  and  compact 
between  them  and  us:  for  we  bound  down  the  Roman  Catholics 
with  the  most  solemn  oaths  to  bear  true  allegiance  to  this  gov- 
ernment, to  abjure  all  sort  of  temporal  power  in  any  other,  and 
to  renounce,  under  the  same  obligations,  the  doctrines  of  sys- 
tematic perfidy  with  which  they  stood  (I  conceive  very  unjustly) 
charged.  Now  our  modest  petitioners  came  up  to  us,  most 
humbly  praying  nothing  more  than  that  we  should  break  our 
faith,  without  any  one  cause  whatsoever  of  forfeiture  assigned  ; 
and  when  the  subjects  of  this  kingdom  had,  on  their  part,  fully 
performed  their  engagement,  we  should  refuse,  on  our  part,  the 
benefit  we  had  stipulated  on  the  performance  of  those  very 
conditions  that  were  prescribed  by  our  own  authority,  and 
taken  on  the  sanction  of  our  public  faith:  that  is  to  say.  when 
we  hud  inveigled  them  with  fair  promises  within  our  door,  wo 
were  to  shut  it  on  them,  and,  adding  mockery  to  outrage,  to 
tell  them, — "Xow  we  have  got  you  fast :  your  consciences  are 
bound  to  a  power  resolved  on  your  destruction.  We  have  made 
you  swear  that  your  religion  obliges  you  to  keep  your  faith: 
fools  as  you  are  !  we  will  now  let  you  see  that  our  religion 
enjoins  us  to  keep  no  faith  with  you."  They  who  would  advis- 
edly call  upon  us  to  do  such  things  must  certainly  have  thought 

George  was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  from  Scotland,  and  was  a 
crazy  fanatic;  and,  in  that  dreadful  time  of  havoc  and  conflagration  and  mur- 
der, he  led  a  huge  rabble  to  the  doors  of  Parliament,  to  browbeat  and  frighten 
the  Houses  into  a  repeal  of  the  Act  in  question.  Burke  was  among  the  foremost 
of  the  members  in  resisting  these  mad  and  brutal  proceedings:  there  \v  a-  no 
quailing  in  him;  he  faced  the  mob  right  up,  and  probably  saved  his  life  partly 
by  his  fearless  bearing,  which  struck  admiration  and  awe  into  the  rioters.  But 
the  story  is  too  long  for  the  compass  of  a  note.  The  horrid  scenes  are  depicted 
at  full  length  in  Diekens's  Barnaby  Rudge. 


SPEECH  TO  THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  145 

us  not  only  a  convention  of  treacherous  tyrants,  but  a  gang  of 
the  lowest  and  dirtiest  wretches  that  ever  disgraced  humanity. 
Had  we  done  this  we  should  have  indeed  proved  that  there 
were  some  in  the  world  whom  no  faith  could  bind ;  and  we 
should  have  convicted  ourselves  of  that  odious  principle  of  which 
Papists  stood  accused  by  those  very  savages  who  wished  us,  on 
that  accusation,  to  deliver  them  over  to  their  fury. 

In  this  audacious  tumult,  when  our  very  name  and  character 
as  gentlemen  was  to  be  cancelled  for  ever,  along  with  the  faith 
and  honour  of  the  nation,  I,  who  had  exerted  myself  very  little 
on  the  quiet  passing  of  the  bill,  thought  it  necessary  then  to 
come  forward.  I  was  not  alone  ;  but,  though  some  distin- 
guished members  on  all  sides,  and  particularly  on  ours,  added 
much  to  their  high  reputation  by  the  part  they  took  on  that 
day,  '.a  part  which  will  be  remembered  as  long  as  honour,  spirit, 
and  eloquence  have  estimation  in  the  world,)  I  may  and  will 
value  myself  so  far,  that,  yielding  in  abilities  to  many,  I  yielded 
in  zeal  to  none.  "With  warmth  and  with  vigour,  and  animated 
with  a  just  and  natural  indignation,  I  called  forth  every  faculty 
that  I  possessed,  and  I  directed  it  in  everyway  in  which  I  could 
possibly  employ  it.  I  laboured  night  and  day.  I  laboured  in 
Parliament;  I  laboured  out  of  Parliament.  If,  therefore,  the 
resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons,  refusing  to  commit  this 
act  of  unmatched  turpitude,  be  a  crime,  lam  guilty  among  the 
foremost.  But  indeed,  whatever  the  faults  of  that  House  may 
have  been,  no  one  member  was  found  hardy  enough  to  propose 
*o  infamous  a  thing ;  and  on  full  debate  we  passed  the  resolu- 
tion against  the  petitions  with  as  much  unanimity  as  we  had 
formerly  passed  the  law  of  which  these  petitions  demanded  the 
repeal 

There  was  a  circumstance  (justice  will  not  suffer  me  to  pass  it 
over)  which,  if  any  thing  could  enforce  the  reasons  I  have 
given,  would  fully  justify  the  Act  of  relief,  and  render  a  repeal, 
or  any  thing  like  a  repeal,  unnatural,  impossible.  It  was  the 
behaviour  of  the  persecuted  Roman  Catholics  under  the  acts 
of  violence  and  brutal  insolence  which  they  suffered.  I  sup- 
bere  are  not  in  London  less  than  four  or  five  thousand  of 
that  persuasion  from  my  country,  who  do  a  great  deal  of  the 
m«»t  laborious  works  in  the  metropolis;  and  they  chiefly  in- 
habit those  quarters  which  were  the  principal  theatre  of  the  fury 
of  the  bigoted  multitude.  They  are  known  to  be  men  of  strong 
arms  and  quick  feelings,  and  more  remarkable  for  a  determined 
resolution  than  clear  ideas  or  much  foresight.  But,  though 
provoked  by  every  thing  that  can  stir  the  blood  of  men,  their 
houses  and  chapels  in  flames,  and  with  the  mostatrocious  profa- 
nations of  every  tiling  which  they  hold  sacred  before  their  eyes, 


140  BURKE. 

not  a  hand  was  moved  to  retaliate,  or  even  to  defend.  Had  a 
conflict  once  begun,  the  rage  of  their  persecutors  would  have 
redoubled.  Thus  fury  increasing  by  the  reverberation  of  out- 
rages, house  being  fired  for  house,  and  church  for  chapel,  I  am 
convinced  that  no  power  under  heaven  could  have  prevented  a 
general  conflagration,  and  at  this  day  London  would  have  been 
a  tale.  But  I  am  well  informed,  and  the  thing  speaks  it,  that 
their  clergy  exerted  their  whole  influence  to  keep  their  people 
in  such  a  state  of  forbearance  and  quiet,  as,  when  I  look  bark, 
fills  me  with  astonishment,— but  not  with  astonishment  only. 
Their  merits  on  that  occasion  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  ;  nor 
will  they,  when  Englishmen  come  to  recollect  themselves.  [ 
am  sure  it  were  far  more  proper  to  have  called  them  forth,  and 
given  them  the  thanks  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  than  to 
have  suffered  those  worthy  clergymen  and  excellent  citizens  to 
be  hunted  into  holes  and  corners,  whilst  we  are  making  Imv- 
minded  inquisitions  into  the  number  of  their  people:  as  if  a 
tolerating  principle  was  never  to  prevail,  unless  we  were  very 
sure  that  only  a  few  could  possibly  take  advantage  of  it.  But 
indeed  we  are  not  yet  well  recovered  of  our  fright.  Our  reason, 
I  trust,  will  return  with  our  security,  and  this  unfortunate  tem- 
per will  pass  over  like  a  cloud. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  now  laid  before  you  a  few  of  the  reasons 
for  taking  away  the  penalties  of  the  Act  of  1609,  and  for  refus- 
ing to  establish  them  on  the  riotous  requisition  of  1780.  Be- 
cause I  would  not  suffer  any  thing  which  may  be  for  your  satis- 
faction to  escape,  permit  me  just  to  touch  on  the  objections 
urged  against  our  Act  and  our  resolves,  and  intended  as  a  justi- 
fication of  the  violence  offered  to  both  Houses.  "Parliament," 
they  assert,  "was  too  hasty,  and  they  ought,  in  so  essential  and 
alarming  a  change,  to  have  proceeded  with  a  far  greater  degree 
of  deliberation."  The  direct  contrary.  Parliament  was  too 
slow.  They  took  fourscore  years  to  deliberate  on  the  repeal  of 
an  Act  which  ought  not  to  have  survived  a  second  session. 
AVhen  at  length,  after  a  procrastination  of  near  a  century,  the 
business  was  taken  up,  it  proceeded  in  the  most  public  manner, 
by  the  ordinary  stages,  and  as  slowly  as  a  law  so  evidently  right 
as  to  be  resisted  by  none  would  naturally  advance.  Had  it  been 
read  three  times  in  one  day,  we  should  have  shown  only  a  be- 
coming readiness  to  recognize,  by  protection,  the  undoubted 
dutiful  behaviour  of  those  whom  we  had  but  too  long  punished 
for  offences  of  presumption  or  conjecture.  But  for  what  end 
was  that  bill  to  linger  beyond  the  usual  period  of  an  unopposed 
measure  ?  AVas  it  to  be  delayed  until  a  rabble  in  Edinburgh 
should  dictate  to  the  Church  of  England  what  measure  of  per- 
secution was  fitting  for  her  safety?  Was  it  to  be  adjourned 


SPEECH  TO  THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  147 

until  a  fanatical  force  could  be  collected  in  London,  sufficient  to 
frighten  us  out  of  all  our  ideas  of  policy  and  justice  ?  AYcre  we 
to  wait  for  the  profound  lectures  on  the  reason  of  State,  eccle- 
siastical and  political,  which  the  Protestant  Association  have 
since  condescended  to  read  to  us  ?  Or  were  we,  seven  hundred 
poors  and  commoners,  the  only  persons  ignorant  of  the  ribald 
invectives  which  occupy  the  place  of  argument  in  those  remon- 
strances, which  every  man  of  common  observation  had  hoard  a, 
thousand  times  over,  and  a  thousand  times  over  had  despised  '? 
All  men  had  before,  hoard  what  they  have  to  say,  and  all  men 
at  this  day  know  what  they  dare  to  do  ;  and  I  trust  all  honest 
men  are  equally  influenced  by  the  one  and  by  the  other. 

But  they  tell  us  that  those  our  fellow-citizens  whose  chains 
we  have  a  little  relaxed  are  enemies  to  liberty  and  our  free 
Constitution.— \<>t  enemies,  I  presume,  to  their  own  liberty. 
And  as  to  the  Constitution,  until  we  give  them  some  share  in  it, 
1  do  not  know  on  what  pretence  we  can  examine  into  their  opin- 
ions aliout  a  business  in  which  they  have  no  interest  or  concern. 
JJnt,  after  all,  are  wo  equally  sure  that  they  are  adverse  to  our 
Constitution  as  that  our  statutes  are  hostile  and  destructive  to 
them?  For  my  part,  I  have  reason  to  believe  their  opinions 
and  inclinations  in  that  respect  are  various,  exactly  like  those 
of  other  men;  and,  it'  they  lean  more  to  the  Crown  than  I  and 
than  many  of  you  think  wr  ought,  wo  must  remember  that  IK; 
who  aims  at  another's  life  is  not  to  be  surprised,  if  he  flies  into 
any  sanctuary  that  will  receive  him.  The  tenderness  of  the  ex- 
ecutive power  is  the  natural  asylum  of  those  upon  whom  the 
laws  have  declared  war  ;  and  to  complain  that  men  are  inclined 
to  favour  the  moans  of  their  own  safety  is  so  absurd,  that  one 
forgets  the  injustice  in  the  ridicule. 

I  must,  fairly  tell  you  that,  so  far  as  my  principles  are  con- 
cerned, (principles  that  1  hope  will  only  depart  with  my  last 
breatn,)  1  have  no  idea  of  a  liberty  unconnected  with  hou- 
nd justice.  Xor  do  I  believe  that  any  good  constitutions 
of  government,  or  of  freedom,  can  find  it  necessary  for  their 
security  to  doom  any  part  of  the  people  to  a  permanent  slavery. 
Such  a  constitution  of  freedom,  if  such  can  be,  is  in  effect  no 
more  than  another  name  for  the  tyranny  of  the  strongest  fac- 
tion ;  and  factions  in  republics  have  been,  and  are,  full  as  capa- 
nionarehs  of  the  most  cruel  oppression  and  injustice.  It 
is  but  too  true,  that  the  love,  and  even  the  very  idea,  of  genuine 
liberty  is  extremely  rare.  It  is  but  too  true  that  there  are 
many  whoso  whole  scheme  of  freedom  is  made  up  of  pride,  per- 
;md  insolence.  They  feel  themselves  in  a  state  of 
thraldom,  they  imagine  that  their  souls  are  cooped  and  cabined 
in,  unless  they  have  some  man  or  some  body  of  men  dependent. 


148  BURKE. 

on  their  mercy.  This  desire  of  having  some  one  below  them 
descends  to  those  who  are  the  very  lowest  of  all ;  and  a  Protest- 
ant cobbler,  debased  by  his  poverty,  but  exalted  by  his  share 
of  the  ruling  Church,  feels  a  pride  in  knowing  it  is  by  his  gener- 
osity alone  that  the  peer  whose  footman's  instep  he  measures 
is  able  to  keep  his  chaplain  from  a  jail.  This  disposition  is  the 
true  source  of  the  passion  which  many  men  in  very  humble  life 
have  taken  to  the  American  war.  Our  subjects  in  America ;  our 
colonies  ;  our  dependents.  This  lust  of  party  power  is  the  lib- 
erty they  hunger  and  thirst  for  ;  and  this  Siren  song  of  ambition 
has  charmed  ears  that  one  would  have  thought  were  never 
organized  to  that  sort  of  music. 

This  way  of.  proscribing  the  citizens  by  denominations  and  general 
descriptions,  dignified  by  the  name  of  reason  of  State,  and  secu- 
rity for  constitutions  and  commonwealths,  is  nothing  better  at 
bottom  than  the  miserable  invention  of  an  ungenerous  ambition 
which  would  fain  hold  the  sacred  trust  of  power,  without  any 
of  the  virtues  or  any  of  the  energies  that  give  a  title  to  it,— a 
receipt  of  policy,  made  up  of  a  detestable  compound  of  malice, 
cowardice,  and  sloth.  They  would  govern  men  against  their 
will ;  but  in  that  government  they  would  be  discharged  from 
the  exercise  of  vigilance,  providence,  and  fortitude  ;  and  there- 
fore, that  they  may  sleep  on  their  watch,  they  consent  to  take 
some  one  division  of  the  society  into  partnership  of  the  tyranny 
over  the  rest.  But  let  government,  in  what  form  it  may  be, 
comprehend  the  whole  in  its  justice,  and  restrain  the  suspicious 
by  its  vigilance,— let  it  keep  watch  and  ward,— let  it  discover 
by  its  sagacity,  and  punish  by  its  firmness,  all  delinquency 
against  its  power,  whenever  delinquency  exists  in  the  overt- 
acts, —  and  then  it  will  be  as  safe  as  ever  God  and  Nature  in- 
tended it  should  be.  Crimes  are  the  acts  of  individuals,  and 
not  of  denominations:  and  therefore  arbitrarily  to  class  men 
under  general  descriptions,  in  order  to  proscribe  and  punish 
them  in  the  lump  for  a  presumed  delinquency,  of  which  perhaps 
but  a  part,  perhaps  none  at  all,  are  guilty,  is  indeed  a  compendi- 
ous method,  and  saves  a  world  of  trouble  about  proof;  but  such 
a  method,  instead  of  being  law,  is  an  act  of  unnatural  rebellion 
against  the  legal  dominion  of  reason  and  justice  ;  and  this  vice, 
in  any  constitution  that  entertains  it,  at  one  time  or  other  will 
certainly  bring  on  its  ruin. 

We  are  told  that  this  is  not  a  religious  persecution  ;  and  its 
abettors  are  loud  in  disclaiming  all  severities  on  account  of  con- 
science. Very  fine  indeed!  Then  let  it  be  so:  they  are  not  per- 
secutors ;  they  are  only  tyrants.  With  all  my  heart,  I  am 
perfectly  indifferent  concerning  the  pretexts  upon  which  we 
torment  one  another, — or  whether  it  be  for  the  Constitution  of 


SPEECH   TO  THE   ELECTORS   OF  BRISTOL.  140 

the  Church  of  England,  or  for  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of 
England,  that  people  choose  to  make  their  fellow-creatures 
wretched.  When  we  were  sent  into  a  place  of  authority,  you 
that  sent  us  had  yourselves  but  one  commission  to  give.  You 
could  give  us  none  to  wrong  or  oppress,  or  even  to  suffer  any 
kind  of  oppression  or  wrong,  on  any  grounds  whatsoever:  not 
on  political,  as  in  the  affairs  of  America  ;  not  on  commercial,  as 
in  those  of  Ireland  ;  not  in  civil,  as  in  the  laws  for  debt ;  not  in 
religious,  as  in  the  statutes  against  Protestant  or  Catholic  dis- 
senters. The  diversified  but  connected  fabric  of  universal  jus- 
tice is  well  cramped  and  bolted  together  in  all  its  parts  ;  and, 
depend  upon  it,  I  never  have  employed,  and  I  never  shall  em- 
ploy, any  engine  of  power  which  may  come  into  my  hands  to 
wrench  it  asunder.  All  shall  stand,  if  I  can  help  it,  and  all 
shall  stand  connected.  After  all,  to  complete  this  work,  much 
remains  to  be  done;  much  in  the  East,  much  in  the  West.  But, 
great  as  the  work  is,  if  our  will  be  ready,  our  powers  are  not 
deficient, 

Since  you  have  suffered  me  to  trouble  you  so  much  on  this 
subject,  permit  me,  Gentlemen,  to  detain  you  a  little  longer. 
I  am  indeed  most  solicitous  to  give  you  perfect  satisfaction.  I 
find  there  are  some  of  a  better  and  softer  nature  than  the  per- 
sons with  whom  I  have  supposed  myself  in  debate,  who  neither 
think  ill  of  the  Act  of  relief,  nor  by  any  means  desire  the 
repeal;  yet  who,  not  accusing,  but  lamenting,  what  was  done, 
on  account  of  the  consequences,  huve  frequently  expressed 
their  wish  that  the  late  Act  had  never  been  made.  Some  of 
this  description,  and  persons  of  worth,  I  have  met  with  in  this 
city.  They  conceive  that  the  prejudices,  whatever  they  might 
lie,  of  a  large  part  of  the  people,  ought  not  to  have  been 
shocked  ;  that  their  opinions  ought  to  have  been  previously 
taken,  and  much  attended  to  ;  and  that  thereby  the  late  horrid 
scenes  might  have  been  prevented. 

I  confess,  my  notions  are  widely  different ;  and  I  never  was 
less  sorry  for  any  action  of  my  life.  I  like  the  bill  the  better  on 
unt  of  the  events  of  all  kinds  that  followed  it.  It  relieved 
tho  real  sufferers;  it  strengthened  the  State;  and,  by  the 
disorders  that  ensued,  we  had  clear  evidence  that  there  lurked 
a  temper  somewhere  which  ought  not  to  be  fostered  by  the 
laws.  No  ill  consequences  whatever  could  be  attributed  to  the 
Act  itself.  We  know  beforehand,  or  we  were  poorly  instructed, 
that  toleration  is  odious  to  the  intolerant,  freedom  to  oppivs- 
,  property  to  robbers,  and  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  prosper- 
ity to  the  envious.  We  knew  that  all  these  kinds  of  men  would 
gladly  gratify  their  evil  dispositions  under  the  sanction  of  law 
and  religion,  if  they  could:  if  they  could  not,  yet,  to  make  way 


150  BURKE. 

to  their  objects,  they  would  do  their  utmost  to  subvert  all  re- 
ligion and  all  law.  This  we  certainly  knew.  But,  knowing 
this,  is  there  any  reason,  because  thieves  break  in  and  steal, 
and  thus  bring  detriment  to  you,  and  draw  ruin  on  themseh vs, 
that  I  am  to  be  sorry  that  you  are  in  possession  of  shops,  and  of 
warehouses,  and  of 'wholesome  laws  to  protect  them?  Are 
you  to  build  no  houses,  because  desperate  men  may  pull  them 
clown  upon  their  own  heads?  Or,  if  a  malignant  wretch  will 
cut  his  own  throat,  because  he  sees  you  give  alms  to  the  neces- 
sitous and  deserving,  shall  his  destruction  be  attributed  to  your 
charity,  and  not  to  his  own  deplorable  madness?  If  we  repent 
of  our  good  actions,  what,  I  pray  you,  is  left  for  our  faults  and 
follies  ?  It  is  not  the  beneficence  of  the  laws,  it  is  the  unnatu- 
ral temper  which  benelicence  can  l'ivt  and  sour,  that  is  to  be 
lamented.  It  is  this  temper  which,  by  all  rational  means,  ought 
to  be  sweetened  and  corrected.  If  f reward  men  should  re 
this  cure,  can  they  vitiate  any  thing  but  themselves?  Does  evil 
so  react  upon  good,  as  not  only  to  retard  its  motion,  but  to 
change  its  nature?  If  it  can  so  operate,  then  good  men  will 
always  be  in  the  power  of  the  bad  ;  and  virtue,  by  a  dreadful 
reverse  of  order,  must  lie  under  perpetual  subjection  and  bond- 
age to  vice. 

As  to  the  opinion  of  the  people,  which  some  think,  in  such 
cases,  is  to  be  implicitly  obeyed,— near  two  years'  tranquillity, 
which  followed  the  Act,  and  its  instant  imitation  in  Ireland, 
proved  abundantly  that  the  late  horrible  spirit  was  in  a  gr 
measure  the  effect  of  insidious  art,  and  perverse  industry,  and 
fc-ros.s  misrepresentation.  But  suppose  that  the  dislike  had 
been  much  more  deliberate  and  much  more  general  than  I  am 
persuaded  it  was,— when  we  know  that  the  opinions  of  even 
the  greatest  multitudes  are  the  standard  of  rectitude,  I  shall 
think  myself  obliged  to  make  those  opinions  the  masters  of  my 
conscience.  But  if  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Omnipotence  it- 
self is  competent  to  alter  the  essential  constitution  of  right  and 
wrong,  sure  I  am  that  such  things  as  they  and  I  are  possessed  of 
no  such  power.  No  man  carries  further  than  I  do  the  policy  of 
making  government  pleasing  to  the  people.  But  the  widest 
ran^e  of  this  politic  complaisance  is  confined  within  the  limits 
of  justice.  I  would  not  only  consult  the  interest  of  the  peoj 
but  I  would  cheerfully  gratify  their  humours.  We  are  all  a 
sort  of  children  that  must  be  soothed  and  managed.  I  think  I 
am  not  austere  or  formal  in  my  nature.  I  would  bear,  I  would 
even  myself  play  my  part  in,  any  innocent  buffooneries,  to  di- 
vert them.  But  I  never  will  act  the  tyrant  for  their  amuse- 
ment. If  they  will  mix  malice  in  their  sports,  I  shall  never  con- 


SPEECH  TO   THE   ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL.  151 

sent  to*  throw  them  any  living,  sentient  creature  whatsoever, 
no,  not  so  much  as  a  kitling,  to  torment. 

But,  if  I  profess  all  this  impolitic  stubbornness,  I  may 
chance  never  to  be  elected  into  Parliament?  —  It  is  certainly 
not  pleasing  to  be  put  out  of  the  public  service.  But  I  wish  to 
be  a  member  of  Parliament  to  have  my  share  of  doing  good 
and  resisting  evil.  It  would  therefore  be  absurd  to  renounce 
my  objects  in  order  to  obtain  my  seat.  I  deceive  myself  indeed 
most  grossly,  if  I  had  not  much  rather  pass  the  remainder  of 
my  life  hidden  in  the  recesses  of  the  deepest  obscurity,  feeding 
my  mind  even  with  the  visions  and  imaginations  of  such  things, 
than  to  be  placed  on  the -most  splendid  throne  of  the  universe, 
tantalized  with  a  denial  of  the  practice  of  all  which  can  make 
the  greatest  situation  any  other  than  the  greatest  curse.  Gen- 
tlemen, I  have  had  my  day.  I  can  never  sutiicicntly  express 
my  gratitude  to  you  for  having  set  me  in  a  place  wherein  I 
could  lend  the  slightest  help  to  great  and  laudable  designs. 
If  I  have  had  my  share  in  any  measure  giving  quiet  to  private 
property  and  private  conscience  ;  if  by  my  vote  I  have  aided  in 
securing  to  families  the  best  possession,  peace ;  if  I  have 
joined  in  reconciling  kings  to  their  subjects,  and  subjects  to 
their  prince  ;  if  I  have  assisted  to  loosen  the  foreign  holdings 
of  the  citi/en,  and  taught  him  to  look  for  his  protection  to 
the  laws  of  his  country,  and  for  his  comfort  to  the  good-will  of 
his  countrymen  ;  — if  I  have  thus  taken  my  part  with  the  best 
of  men  in  the  best  of  their  actions,  I  can  shut  the  book:  I  might 
wish  to  read  a  page  or  two  more,  but  this  is  enough  for  my 
measure.  I  have  not  lived  in  vain. 

And  now,  (ieutleinen,  on  this  serious  day,  when  I  come,  as  it 
were,  to  make  up  my  account  with  you,  let  me  take  to  myself 
some  decree  of  hom->t  pride  on  the  nature  of  the  charges  that 
are  against  me.  I  do  not  here  stand  before  you  accused  of 
venality,  or  of  neglect  of  duty.  It  is  not  said  that,  in  the  long 
id  of  my  service,  1  have,  in  a  single  instance,  sacrificed  the 
slightest  of  your  interests  to  my  ambition  or  to  my  fortune.  It 
is  not  alleged  that,  to  gratify  any  anger  or  revenge  of  my  own, 
<>r  of  my  party,  I  have  had  u  share  in  wronging  or  oppressing 
any  description  of  men,  or  any  one  man  in  any  description. 
No!  the,  charges  against  me  are  all  of  one  kind;  that  I  have 
pushed  the  principles  of  general  justice  and  benevolence  too 
far,— further  than  a  cautious  policy  would  warrant,  and  further 
than  the  opinions  of  many  would  go  along  with  me.  In  every 
accident  which  may  happen  through  life,  in  pain,  in  sorrow,  in 
depression,  and  distress,  I  will  call  to  mind  this  accusation,  and 
be  comforted. 


152  BURKE. 

Gentlemen,  I  submit  the  whole  to  your  judgment.  Mr.  May- 
or, I  thank  you  for  the  trouble  you  have  taken  on  this  occasion : 
in  your  state  of  health  it  is  particularly  obliging.  If  this  com- 
pany should  think  it  advisable  for  me  to  withdraw,  I  shall  re- 
spectfully retire ;  if  you  think  otherwise,  I  shall  go  directly  to 
the  Council-House  and  to  the  'Change,  and  without  a  moment's 
delay  begin  my  canvass.0 


GROWTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  TRADE. 

THE  trade  with  America  alone  is  now  within  less  than 
£500,000  of  being  equal  to  what  this  great  commercial  nation, 
England,  carried  on  at  the  beginning  of  this  century  with  the 
whole  world!  But,  it  will  be  said,  is  not  this  American  trade 
an  unnatural  protuberance,  that  has  drawn  the  juices  from  the 
rest  of  the  body?  The  reverse.  It  is  the  very  food  that  has 
nourished  every  other  part  into  its  present  magnitude.  Our 
general  trade  has  been  greatly  augmented,  and  augmented  more 
or  less  in  almost  every  part  to  which  it  ever  extended,  but  with 
this  material  difference, —  that,  of  the  six  millions  which  in  the 
beginning  of  the  century  constituted  the  whole  mass  of  our  ex- 
port commerce,  the  colony  trade  was  but  one  twelfth  part ;  it  is 
now  (as  a  part  of  sixteen  millions)  considerably  more  than  a 
third  of  the  whole.  This  is  the  relative  proportion  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  colonies  at  these  two  periods;  and  all  reasoning 
concerning  our  mode  of  treating  them  must  have  this  proportion 
as  its  basis,  or  it  is  a  reasoning  weak,  rotten,  and  sophistical. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  cannot  prevail  on  myself  to  hurry  over  this 
great  consideration.  It  is  good  for  us  to  be  here.  We  stand 

G  Immediately  after  the  close  of  this  speech,  a  large  meeting  of  Eurko's 
friends  was  held  in  the  Guildhall,  with  the  Mayor  in  the  chair,  and  resolutions 
were  passed,  declaring  that  he  had  done  "  all  possible  honour  to  himself  as  a  sen- 
ator and  a  man,"  heartily  approving  his  parliamentary  course  in  all  its  parts, 
and  earnestly  requesting  him  to  offer  himself  again  as  a  candidate,  with  assur- 
ances of  thefr  cordial  and  full  support.  Thereupon  he  proceeded  with  the  can- 
vass for  three  days;  and  on  the  Oth,  being  satisfied  that  lie  should  not  win,  ho 
made  another  brief  speech,  calmly  declining  the  election,  and  withdrawing  from 
the  poll.  One  of  the  candidates,  a  Mr.  Coombe,  having  suddenly  died,  lie  ppokc 
of  the  circumstance  as  follows:  "Gentlemen,  the  melancholy  event  of  yesterday 
reads  to  us  an  awful  lesson  against  being  too  much  troubled  about  any  of  the 
objects  of  ordinary  ambition.  The  worthy  gentleman  who  has  been  snatched 
from  us  at  the  moment  of  the  election,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  contest,  whilst 
his  desires  were  as  warm  and  his  hopes  as  eager  as  ours,  has  feelingly  told  us 
v/hat  shadows  we  are  and  what  shadows  we  pursue." 


GROWTH   OF  THE   AMERICAN-'  TRADE.  153 

•where  we  have  an  immense  view  of  what  is,  and  what  is  past. 
Clouds,  indeed,  and  darkness,  rest  upon  the  future.  Let  us, 
however,  before  we  descend  from  this  noble  eminence,,  reflect 
that  this  growth  of  our  national  prosperity  has  happened  within 
the  short  period  of  the  life  of  man.  It  has  happened  within 
sixty-eight  years.  There  are  those  alive  whose  memory  might 
touch  the  two  extremities.  For  instance,  my  Lord  Bathurst 
might  remember  all  the  stages  of  the  progress.  He  was  in  1704 
of  an  age  at  least  to  be  made  to  comprehend  such  things.  He 
was  then  old  enough  acta  parcntum  jam  lcgcrc,  et  quce  sit  potcrit 
cognosccrc  virtus.  Suppose,  Sir,  that  the  angel  of  this  auspicious 
youth,  foreseeing  the  many  virtues  which  made  him  one  of  the 
most  amiable,  as  Jie  is  one  of  the  most  fortunate  men  of  his  age, 
had  opened  to  him  in  vision  that,  when,  in  the  fourth  genera- 
tion, the  third  prince  of  the  House  of  Brunswick  had  sat  twelve 
years  on  the  throne  of  that  nation  which  (by  the  happy  issue  of 
moderate  and  healing  councils)  was  to  be  made  Great  Britain,7 
he  should  see  his  son,  Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  turn  back 
the  current  of  hereditary  dignity  to  its  fountain,  and  raise  him 
to  an  higher  rank  of  peerage,  whilst  he  enriched  the  family  with 
a  new  one  ;  if,  amidst  these  bright  and  happy  scenes  of  domes- 
tic honour  and  prosperity,  that  angel  should  have  drawn  up  the 
curtain,  and,  unfolding  the  rising  glories  of  his  country,  and 
whilst  he  was  gazing  with  admiration  on  the  then  commercial 
grandeur  of  England,  the  genius  should  point  out  to  him  a  little 
spe«-k,  scarce  visible  in  the  mass  of  the  national  interest,  a  small 
seminal  principle  rather  than  a  formed  body,  and  should  tell 
him,— "Young  man,  there  is  America, —  which  at  this  day 
serves  for  little  more  than  to  amuse  you  with  stories  of  savage 
men  and  uncouth  manners  ;  yet  shall,  before  you  taste  of  death, 
show  itself  equal  to  the  whole  of  that  commerce  which  now  at- 
tracts the  envy  of  the  world.  Whatever  England  has  been 
Blowing  to  by  a  progressive  increase  of  improvement,  brought 
in  by  varieties  of  people,  by  succession  of  civilizing  conquests 
and  civilizing  settlements  in  a  series  of  seventeen  hundred 
you  shall  see  as  much  added  to  her  by  America  in  the 
course  of  a  single  life!"  If  this  state  of  his  country  had  been 
foretold  to  him,  would  it  not  require  all  the  sanguine  credulity 
nth,  and  all  the  fervid  glow  of  enthusiasm,  to  make  him 
b« -lit  ve  it?  Fortunate  man,  he  has  lived  to  see  it!  Fortunate 
indeed,  if  he  lives  to  see  nothing  that  shall  vary  the  prospect, 
and  cloud  the  setting  of  his  day!  —  Speech  on  Conciliation  with 
America,  1775. 

7    The  parliamentary  union  of  England  and  Scotland  took  place  within  the 
period  in  question. 


154  BURKE. 


CHARACTER  OF  GEORGE  GRENVILLE.8 

!N"o  man  can  believe  that,  at  this  time  of  day,  I  mean  to  lean 
on  the  venerable  memory  of  a  great  man,  whose  loss  we  deplore 
in  common.  Our  little  party  differences  have  been  long  ago 
composed  ;  and  I  have  acted  more  with  him,  and  certainly  with 
more  pleasure  with  him,  than  ever  I  acted  against  him.  Un- 
doubtedly Mr.  Grenville  was  a  first-rate  figure  in  this  country. 
With  a  masculine  understanding  and  a  stout  and  resolute  heart, 
he  had  an  application  undissipated  and  unwearied.  He  took 
public  business,  not  as  a  duty  which  he  was  to  fulfil,  but  as  u 
pleasure  he  was  to  enjoy ;  and  he  seemed  to  have  no  delight 
out  of  this  House,  except  in  such  things  as  some  way  related  to 
the  business  that  was  to  be  done  within  it.  If  he  was  ambi- 
tious, I  will  say  this  for  him,  his  ambition  was  of  a  noble  and 
generous  strain.  It  was  to  raise  himself,  not  by  the  low,  pimp- 
ing politics  of  a  Court,  but  to  win  his  way  to  power  through  the 
laborious  gradations  of  public  service,  and  to  secure  himself  a 
well-earned  rank  in  Parliament  by  a  thorough  knowledge  of  its 
constitution  and  a  perfect  practice  in  all  its  business. 

Sir,  if  such  a  man  fell  into  errors,  it  must  be  from  defects  not 
intrinsical ;  they  mu>t  be  rather  sought  in  the  particular  habits 
of  his  life,  which,  though  they  do  not  alter  the  groundwork  of 
character,  yet  tinge  it  with  their  own  hue.  He  was  bred  in  a 
profession.  He  was  bred  to  the  law,  which  is,  in  my  opinion, 
one  of  the  first  and  noblest  of  human  sciences, —  a  science  which 
does  more  to  quicken  and  invigorate  the  understanding  than  all 
the  other  kinds  of  learning  put  together ;  but  it  is  not  apt,  ex- 
cept in  persons  very  happily  born,  to  open  and  to  liberalize  the 
mind  exactly  in  the  same  proportion.  Passing  from  that  study, 
he  did  not  go  very  largely  into  the  world,  but  plunged  into  busi- 
ness,—I  mean  into  the  business  of  office,  and  the  limited  and 
fixed  methods  and  forms  established  there.  Much  knowledge 
is  to  be  had,  undoubtedly,  in  that  line ;  and  there  is  no  knowl- 
edge which  is  not  valuable.  But  it  may  be  truly  said,  that  men 

8  Grenville  became  a  member  of  the  Bute  Ministry  in  17G1,  and  bore  a  lead- 
ing.  perhaps  I  should  say  the  leading,  part  in  framing  and  carrying  through  the 
scheme  of  American  policy  which  issued  in  the  revolt,  and  finally  in  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  colonies.  As  the  cap-stone  of  this  policy,  in  February,  17G.">,  he 
moved  upwards  of  fifty  resolutions  in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  fatal  Stamp 
Act  being  among  them.  Burke,  though  not  then  a  member  of  Parliament,  was 
from  tho  outset  utterly  opposed  to  that  policy  in  all  its  parts;  and,  under  the 
first  Rockingham  administration,  in  1703,  he  did  his  part  in  procuring  a  repeal  of 
the  Acts  passed  in  pursuance  of  it.  — Grenville  was  a  brother  of  Earl  Temple, 
and  died  in  November,  1770. 


CHATHAM   AXD   TOWXSHEXD.  155 

too  much  conversant  in  office  are  rarely  minds  of  remarkable 
enlargement.  Their  habits  of  office  are  apt  to  give  them  a  turn 
to  think  the  substance  of  business  not  to  be  much  more  import- 
ant than  the  forms  in  which  it  is  conducted.  These  forms  are 
adapted  to  ordinary  occasions;  and  therefore  persons  who  are 
nurtured  in  office  do  admirably  well  as  long  as  things  go  on  in 
their  common  order;  but  when  the  high-roads  are  broken  up,  and 
the  waters  out,  when  a  new  and  troubled  scene  is  opened,  and 
the  file  affords  no  precedent,  then  it  is  that  a  greater  knowledge 
of  mankind,  and  a  far  more  extensive  comprehension  of  things 
is  requisite,  than  ever  office  gave,  or  than  office  can  ever  give. 
Mr.  (livnville  thought  better  of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  hu- 
man legislation  than  in  truth  it  deserves.  He  conceived,  and 
many  conceived  along  with  him,  that  the  flourishing  trade  of 
this  country  was  greatly  owing  to  law  and  institution,  and  not 
quite  so  much  to  liberty;  for  but  too  many  are  apt  to  believe 
regulation  to  be  commerce,  and  taxes  to  be  revenue.—  Speech 
cm  American  Taxation,  1774. 


LORD  CHATHAM  AOT>  CHARLES  TOWNSHEND.0 

I  HAVE  done  with  the  third  period  of  your  policy,— that  of 
your  repeal,  and  the  return  of  your  ancient  system,  and  your 
ancient  tranquillity  and  concord.  Sir,  this  period  was  not  as 
long  as  it  was  happy.  Another  scene  was  opened,  and  other 
actors  appeared  on  the  stage.  The  State,  in  the  condition  I 
have  described  it,  was  delivered  into  the  hands  of  Lord  Chat- 
ham, a  great  and  celebrated  name,— a  name  that  keeps  the 
name  of  this  country  respectable  in  every  other  on  the  globe. 
It  may  be  truly  called 

Clarum  ct  vcnerabilc  nomen 
Gentibus,  ct  multum  nostrie  quod  proderat  urbi. 

Sir,  the  venerable  age  of  this  great  man,  his  merited  rank,  his 
M.licrior  eloquence,  his  splendid  qualities,  his  eminent  services, 
the  vast  space  he  fills  in  the  eye  of  mankind,  and,  more  than  all 

9  The  Knrl.in;rl:am  Ministry  continued  in  office  something  less  than  thirteen 
months,  when  I'itt  was  again  ''ailed  to  the  helm,  and,  lor  his  Ministry,  got  up  the 
rickety  piece  of  patchwork  which  IJurke  here,  M>  vividly  describes,  Townshend 

bancellor  of  the  Exchequer,    in  May,  1707,  the  Ill-starred  legislation  so 
pealed  was  in  substance  revived,  Townshend  acting  as  chief  engineer 

in  the  revival.     That  Ministry  camo  to  an  end  the  Summer  following,  ami 

Townshend  died  soon  after. 


156  BURKE. 

the  rest,  his  fall  from  power,  which,  like  death,  canonizes  and 
sanctifies  a  great  character,  will  not  suffer  me  to  censure  any 
part  of  his  conduct.  I  am  afraid  to  flatter  him ;  I  am  sure  I  am 
not  disposed  to  blame  him.  Let  those  who  have  betrayed  him 
by  their  adulation  insult  him  with  their  malevolence.  But 
what  I  do  not  presume  to  censure  I  may  have  leave  to  lament. 
For  a  wise  man,  he  seemed  to  me  at  that  time  to  be  governed 
too  much  by  general  maxims.  I  speak  with  the  freedom  of 
history,  and  I  hope  without  offence.  One  or  two  of  these 
maxims,  flowing  from  an  opinion  not  the  most  indulgent  to  our 
unhappy  species,  and  surely  a  little  too  general,  led  him  into 
measures  that  were  greatly  mischievous  to  himself,  and  for  that 
reason,  among  others,  perhaps  fatal  to  his  country, — measures, 
the  effects  of  which,  I  am  afraid,  are  for  ever  incurable,  lie 
made  an  administration  so  checkered  and  speckled,  he  put  to- 
gether a  piece  of  joinery  so  crossly  indented  and  whimsically 
dovetailed,  a  cabinet  so  variously  inlaid,  such  a  piece  of  diversi- 
fied mosaic,  such  a  tessellated  pavement  without  cement,  —  here 
a  bit  of  black  stone,  and  there  a  bit  of  white,  patriots  and  cour- 
tiers, King's  friends  and  republicans,  Whigs  and  Tories,  treach- 
erous friends  and  open  enemies,— that  it  was,  indeed,  a  very 
curious  show,  but  utterly  unsafe  to  touch  and  unsure  to  stand 
on.  The  colleagues  whom  he  had  assorted  at  the  same  boards 
stared  at  each  other,  and  were  obliged  to  ask,— "Sir,  your 
name?" — "Sir,  you  have  the  advantage  of  me." — "Mr.  Such- 
a-one." — "I  beg  a  thousand  pardons." — I  venture  to  say,  it  did 
so  happen  that  persons  had  a  single  office  divided  between  them, 
who  had  never  spoken  to  each  other  in  their  lives,  until  they 
found  themselves,  they  knew  not  how,  pigging  together,  heads 
and  points,  in  the  same  truckle-bed. 

Sir,  in  consequence  of  this  arrangement,  having  put  so  much 
the  larger  part  of  his  enemies  and  opposers  into  power,  the 
confusion  was  such  that  his  own  principles  could  not  possibly 
have  any  effect  or  influence  in  the  conduct  of  affairs.  It'  ever 
he  fell  into  a  fit  of  the  gout,  or  if  any  other  cause  withdrew  him 
from  public  cares,  principles  directly  the  contrary  were  sure  to 
predominate.  When  he  had  executed  his  plan,  he  had  not  ;ri 
inch  of  ground  to  stand  upon.  When  he  had  accomplished  his 
scheme  of  administration,  he  was  no  longer  Minister. 

When  his  face  was  hid  but  for  a  moment,  his  whole  system  was 
on  a  wide  sea  without  chart  or  compass.  The  gentlemen,  hi-* 
particular  friends,  who,  with  the  names  of  various  departments 
of  Ministry,  were  admitted  to  seem  as  if  they  acted  a  part  under 
him,  with  a  modesty  that  becomes  all  men,  and  with  a  confi- 
dence in  him  which  was  justified  even  in  its  extravagance  by 
his  superior  abilities,  had  never  in  any  instance  presumed  upon 


CHATHAM  AND   TOWNSHEXD.  157 

any  opinion  of  their  own.  Deprived  of  his  guiding  influence, 
they  were  whirled  about,  the  sport  of  every  gust,  and  easily 
driven  into  any  port ;  and  as  those  who  joined  with  them  in 
manning  the  vessel  were  the  most  directly  opposite  to  his 
opinions,  measures,  and  character,  and  far  the  most  artful  and 
most  powerful  of  the  set,  they  easily  prevailed,  so  as  to  seize 
upon  the  vacant,  unoccupied,  and  derelict  minds  of  his  friends, 
and  instantly  they  turned  the  vessel  wholly  out  cf  the  course  of 
his  policy.  As  if  it  were  to  insult  as  well  as  to  betray  him,  even 
long  before  the  close  of  the  first  session  of  his  administration, 
when  every  thing  was  publicly  transacted,  and  with  great 
parade,  in  his  name,  they  made  an  Act  declaring  it  highly  just 
and  expedient  to  raise  a  revenue  in  America.  For  even  then, 
Sir,  even  before  this  splendid  orb  was  entirely  set,  and  while 
tin;  western  horizon  was  in  a  blaze  with  his  descending  glory, 
on  the  opposite  quarter  of  the  heavens  arose  another  luminary, 
and  for  his  hour  became  lord  of  the  ascendant. 

This  light,  too,  is  parsed  and  set  Tor  ever.  You  understand, 
to  1)0  sure,  that  I  speak  of  Charles  Townshend,  officially  the 
reproducer  of  this  fatal  scheme,  whom  I  cannot  even  now 
remember  without  some  degree  of  sensibility.  In  truth,  Sir, 
he  was  the  delight  and  ornament  of  this  House,  and  the  charm 
of  every  private  society  which  he  honoured  with  his  presence. 
Perhaps  there  never  arose  in  this  country,  nor  in  any  country, 
a  man  of  a  more  pointed  and  finished  wit,  and  (where  his  pas- 
sions were  not  concerned)  of  a  more  refined,  exquisite,  and 
penetrating  judgment.  IT  he  had  not  so  great  a  stock  as  some 
have  had,  who  ilourished  formerly,  of  knowledge-  long  treasured 
up,  he  knew,  better  by  far  than  any  man  I  ever  was  acquainted 
with,  how  to  bring  together  within  a  short  time  all  that  was 
necessary  to  establish,  to  illustrate,  and  to  decorate  that  side  of 
the  question  he  supported.  .  He  stated  his  matter  skilfully  and 
powerfully.  He  particularly  excelled  in  a  most  luminous 

•  lanation  and  display  of  his  subject.  His  style  of  argument 
was  neither  trite  and  vulgar  nor  subtile  and  abstruse.  He  hit 
the  House  just  between  wind  and  water.  And,  not  being 
troubled  with  too  anxious  a  zeal  for  any  matter  in  question,  he 
never  more  tedious  or  more  earnest  than  the  preconceived 
opinions  and  present  temper  of  his  hearers  required,  to  whom 
he  was  always  in  perfect  unison.  He  conformed  exactly  to  the 

iper  of  the  House  ;  and  he  seemed  to  guide,  because  he  was 
always  sure  to  follow  it. 

I  lie1;;  pardon,  Sir,  if,  when  I  speak  of  this  and  of  ether  great 
ni"ii,  I  appear  to  digress  in  saying  something  of  their  characters. 
In  this  eventful  history  of  the  revolutions  of  America,  the  char- 
acters of  such  men  are  of  much  importance.  Great  men  are  the- 


158  BURKE. 

guideposts  and  landmarks  in  the  State.  The  credit  of  such  men 
at  Court  or  in  the  nation  is  the  sole  cause  of  all  the  public 
measures.  It  would  be  an  invidious  thing  (most  foreign,  I 
trust,  to  what  you  think  my  disposition)  to  remark  the  errors 
into  which  the  authority  of  great  names  has  brought  the  nation, 
without  doing  justice  at  the  same  time  to  the  great  qualities 
whence  that  authority  arose.  The  subject  is  instructive  to 
those  who  wish  to  form  themselves  on  whatever  of  excellence 
has  gone  before  them.  There  arc  many  young  members  in  the 
House  (such  of  late  has  been  the  rapid  succession  of  public 
men)  who  never  saw  that  prodigy,  Charles  Townshond,  nor  of 
course  know  what  a  ferment  he  was  able  to  excite  in  every 
thing  by  the  violent  ebullition  of  his  mixed  virtues  and  failings. 
For  failings  he  had  undoubtedly, — many  of  us  remember  them: 
we  are  this  day  considering  the  effect  of  them.  But  he  had  no 
failings  which  were  not  owing  to  a  noble  cause,— to  an  ardent, 
generous,  perhaps  an  immoderate  passion  for  fame  ;  a  passion 
which  is  the  instinct  of  all  great  souls.  He  worshipped  that  god- 
dess, wheresoever  she  appeared  ;  but  he  paid  his  particular  de- 
votions to  her  in  her  favourite  habitation,  in  her  chosen  temple, 
the  House  of  Commons.  Besides  the  characters  of  the  individ- 
uals who  compose  our  body,  it  is  impossible,  Mr.  Speaker,  not 
to  observe  that  this  House  has  a  collective  character  of  its  own. 
That  character,  too,  however  imperfect,  is  not  unamiable.  Like 
all  great  public  collections  of  men,  you  possess  a  marked  love 
of  virtue  and  an  abhorrence  of  vice.  But  among  vices  there  is 
none  which  the  House  abhors  in  the  same  degree  with  ob* 
Obstinacy,  Sir,  is  certainly  a  great  vice  ;  and  in  the  changeful 
state  of  political  affairs  it  is  frequently  the  cause  of  great  mis- 
chief. It- happens,  however,  very  unfortunately,  that  almost 
the  whole  line  of  the  great  and  masculine  virtues,  constancy, 
gravity,  magnanimity,  fortitude,  fidelity,  and  firmness,  are 
closely  allied  to  this  disagreeable  quality,  of  which  you  ha\  <•  so 
just  an  abhorrence  ;  and,  in  their  excess,  all  these  virtues  very 
easily  fall  into  it.  He  who  paid  such  a  punctilious  attention  to 
all  your  feelings  certainly  took  care  not  to  shock  them  by  that 
vice  which  is  the  most  disgustful  to  you.— Speech  on  American 
Taxation. 


STATE  OF  THINGS   Itf  FRANCE.  159 


STATE  OF  THINGS  IN  FRANCE.™ 

SINCE  the  House  had  been  prorogued  in  the  Summer,  much 
work  was  clone  in  France.  The  French  had  shown  themselves 
the  ablest,  architects  of  ruin  that  had  hitherto  existed  in  the 
world.  In  that  very  short  space  of  time  they  had  completely 
pulled  down  to  the  ground  their  monarchy,  their  Church,  their 
nobility,  their  law,  their  revenue,  their  army,  their  navy,  their 
commerce,  their  arts,  and  their  manufactures.  They  had  done 
their  business  for  us  as  rivals,  in  a  way  in  which  twenty  Ka- 
millies  or  Blenheims  could  never  have  done  it.  Were  we  abso- 
lute conquerors,  and  France  to  lie  prostrate  at  our  feet,  wo 
should  be  ashamed  to  send  a  commission  to  settle  their  affairs, 
which  could  impose  so  hard  a  law  upon  the  French,  and  so  de- 
structive of  all  their  consequence  as  a  nation,  as  that  they  had 
imposed  on  themselves. 

In  the  last  age  we  were  in  danger  of  being  entangled  by  the 
example  of  France  in  the  net  of  a  relentless  despotism.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  say  any  thing  upon  that  example.  It  exists  no 
longer.  Our  present  danger  'from  the  example  of  a  people, 
whose  character  knows  no  medium,  is,  with  regard  to  govern- 
ment, a  danger  from  anarchy;  a  danger  of  being  led,  through 
an  admiration  of  successful  fraud  and  violence,  to  an  imitation 
of  the  excesses  of  an  irrational,  unprincipled,  proscribing, 
confiscating,  plundering,  ferocious,  bloody,  and  tyrannical  de- 
mocracy. On  the  side  of  religion,  the  danger  of  their  example 
is  no  longer  from  intolerance,  but  from  atheism  ;  a  foul,  unnat- 
ural vice,  foe  to  all  the  dignity  and  consolation  of  mankind; 
which  seems  in  France,  for  a  long  time,  to  have  been  embodied 
into  a  faction,  accredited,  and  almost  avowed. 

He  was  so  strongly  opposed  to  any  the  least  tendency  towards 

the  niffinx  of  introducing  a  democracy  like  theirs,  as  well  as  to 

7  it -elf,  that  he  would  abandon  his  best  friends,  and  join 

with  ln^  worst,  enemies,  to  oppose  either  the  means  or  the  end  ; 

and  to  resist  all  violent  exertions  of  the  spirit  of  innovation,  so 

'0  Tho  following  paragraphs  arc  a  portion  of  what  is  entitled,  in  full,  "Sub- 
ptancf  of  the  Speech,  in  the  Debate  on  the  Army  Estimates,  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  on  Tuesday,  the  9th  day  of  February,  1790;  comprehending  a  Discus- 
f-i'.n  of  the  present.  Condition  of  Affairs  in  Franco.  1790."  Up  to  that  time,  the 
current  of  avowed  feeling  in  Parliament  seemed  to  be  setting  rather  in  favour  of 
the  doingH  in  France.  Fox.  especially,  had  spoken  enthusiastically  in  praise  of 
them.  Burke's  speech  was  the  Ibvt,  note  of  derided  opposition  to  the  new  opin- 
ions :  it  took  tho.  House  quite  by  surprise,  and  produced  a  very  great  impression. 
At-  lirst  be  wa«  heard  with  nmUt  a>toni*hment;  but  as  he  \vcnton  the  applause 
became  loud  and  frequent;  an«i  when  he  got  through,  it  was  pretty  evident  that 
ol'l  England'*  mighty  heart,  was  with  him  See  the  next  note. 


1GO  BURKE. 

distant  from  all  principles  of  true  and  safe  reformation,— a 
spirit  well  calculated  to  overturn  States,  but  perfectly  unfit  to 
amend  them. —  He  was  no  enemy  to  reformation.  Almost  every 
business  in  which  he  was  much  concerned,  from  the  first  day  ho 
sat  in  that  House  to  that  hour,  was  a  business  of  reformation  ; 
and  when  he  had  not  been  employed  in  correcting,  he  had  been 
employed  in  resisting,  abuses.  Some  traces  of  this  spirit  in  him 
now  stand  on  their  statute-book.  In  his  opinion,  any  thing 
which  unnecessarily  tore  to  pieces  the  contexture  of  the  State 
not  only  prevented  all  real  reformation,  but  introduced  evils 
which  would  call,  but  perhaps  call  in  vain,  for  new  reformation. 

The  French  have  made  their  way,  through  the  destruction  of 
their  country,  to  a  bad  constitution,  when  they  were  absolutely 
in  possession  of  a  good  one.  They  were  in  possession  of  it  the 
day  the  states  met  in  separate  orders.  Their  business,  had  they 
been  either  virtuous  or  wise,  or  had  they  been  left  to  their  own 
judgment,  was  to  secure  the  stability  and  independence  of  the 
states,  according  to  those  orders,  under  the  monarch  on  the 
throne.  It  was  then  their  duty  to  redress  grievances. 

Instead  of  redressing  grievances,  and  improving  the  fabric  of 
their  State,  to  which  they  were  called  by  their  monarch,  and 
sent  by  their  country,  they  were  made  to  take  a  very  different 
course.  They  first  destroyed  all  the  balances  and  counterpoises 
which  serve  to  fix  the  State,  and  to  give  it  a  steady  direction ; 
and  which  furnish  sure  correctives  to  any  violent  spirit  which 
may  prevail  in  any  of  the  orders.  These  balances  exi.sted  in 
their  oldest  Constitution  ;  and  in  the  Constitution  of  this  coun- 
try ;  and  in  the  Constitutions  of  all  the  countries  of  Europe. 
These  they  rashly  destroyed,  and  then  they  melted  down  the 
whole  into  one  incongruous,  ill-connected  mass. 

When  they  had  done  this,  they  instantly,  and  with  the  most 
atrocious  perfidy  and  breach  of  all  faith  among  men,  laid  the 
axe  to  the  root  of  all  property,  and  consequently  of  all  national 
prosperity,  by  the  principles  they  established,  and  the  example 
they  set,  in  confiscating  all  the  possessions  of  the  Church. 
They  made  and  recorded  a  sort  of  institute  and  digest  of  anarchy, 
called  the  rights  of  man,  in  such  a  pedantic  abuse  of  elementary 
principles  as  would  have  disgraced  boys  at  school:  but  this 
declaration  of  rights  was  worse  than  trifling  and  pedantic  in 
them ;  as  by  their  name  and  authority  they  systematically 
destroyed  every  hold  of  authority  by  opinion,  religious  or  civil, 
on  the  minds  of  the  people.  By  this  mad  declaration  they  sub- 
verted the  State  ;  and  brought  on  such  calamities  as  no  country, 
without  a  long  war,  has  ever  been  known  to  suffer ;  and  which 
may  in  the  end  produce  such  a  war,  and  perhaps  many  such. 

With  them  the  question  was  not  between  despotism  and  lib. 


STATE   OF  THINGS- IN   FRANCE.  161 

erty.  The  sacrifice  they  made  of  the  peace  and  power  of  their 
country  was  not  made  on  the  altar  of  freedom.  Freedom,  and 
n,  better  security  for  freedom  than  that  they  have  taken,  they 
might  have  had  without  any  sacrifice  at  all.  They  brought 
themselves  into  all  the  calamities  they  suffer,  not  that  through 
them  they  might  obtain  a  British  Constitution ;  they  plunged 
themselves  headlong  into  those  calamities,  to  prevent  them- 
selves from  settling  into  that  Constitution,  or  into  any  thing 
resembling  it. 

The  worst  effect  of  all  their  proceeding  was  on  their  military, 
which  was  rendered  an  army  for  every  purpose  but  that  of  de- 
fence. It  was  not  an  army  in  corps  and  with  discipline,  und 
embodied  under  the  respectable  patriot  citizens  of  the  State  in 
resisting  tyranny.  Nothing  like  it.  It  was  the  case  of  common 
soldiers  deserting  from  their  officers,  to  join  a  furious,  licen- 
tious populace.  It  was  a  desertion  to  a  cause,  the  real  object 
of  which  was  to  level  all  those  institutions,  and  to  break  all 
those  connections,  natural  and  civil,  that  regulate  and  hold  to- 
gether the  community  by  a  chain  of  subordination ;  to  raise 
soldiers  against  their  oilicers  ;  servants  against  their  masters  ; 
tradesmen  against  their  customers  ;  artificers  against  their  em- 
ployers; tenants  against  their  landlords ;  curates  against  their 
bishops ;  and  children  against  their  parents.  That  this  cause 
of  theirs  was  not  an  enemy  to  servitude,  but  to  society. 

He  knew  too  well,  and  he  felt  as  much  as  any  man,  how  diffi- 
cult it  was  to  accommodate  a  standing  army  to  a  free  constitu- 
tion, or  to  any  constitution.  An  armed  disciplined  body  is,  in. 
its  essence,  dangerous  to  liberty  ;  undisciplined,  it  is  ruinous  to 
society.  Its  component  parts  are,  in  the  latter  case,  neither 
good  citizens  nor  good  soldiers.  What  have  they  thought  of  in 
France,  under  such  a  difficulty  as  almost  puts  the  human  facul- 
ties to  a  stand  ?  They  have  put  their  army  under  such  a  variety 
of  principles  of  duty,  that  it  is  more  likely  to  breed  litigants, 
pettifoggers,  and  mutineers,  than  soldiers.  They  have  set  up, 
to  balance  their  Crown  army,  another  army,  deriving  under  an- 
other  authority,  called  a  municipal  army,— a  balance  of  armies 
not  of  orders.  These  latter  they  have  destroyed  with  every 
mark  of  insult  and  oppression.  States  may,  and  they  will  best, 
vith  a  partition  of  civil  powers.  Armies  cannot  exist 
i;n<ler  a  divided  command.  This  state  of  things  he  thought,  in 
efi--(  t,  a  state  of  war,  or,  at  best,  but  a  truce  instead  of  peace,  in 
the  country. 

He  felt  some  concern  that  this  strange  thing,  called  a  revolu- 
tion, in  France,  should  be  compared  with  the  glorious  event 
commonly  called  the  devolution  in  England;  and  the  conduct 
of  the  soldiery,  on  that  occasion,  compared  with  the  behaviour 


162  BURKE. 

of  some  of  the  troops  of  France  in  the  present  instance.  At 
that  period  the  Prince  of  Orange,  a  prince  of  the  blood-royal  in 
England,  was  called  in  by  the  flower  of  the  English  aristocracy 
to  defend  its  ancient  Constitution,  and  not  to  level  all  distinc- 
tions. To  this  prince,  so  invited,  the  aristocratic  leaders  who 
commanded  the  troops  went  over  with  their  several  corps,  in 
bodies,  to  the  deliverer  of  their  country.  Aristocratic  leaders 
brought  up  the  corps  of  citizens  who  newly  enlisted  in  this 
cause.  Military  obedience  changed  its  object ;  but  military  dis- 
cipline was  not  for  a  moment  interrupted  in  its  principle.  The 
troops  were  ready  for  war,  but  indisposed  to  mutiny. 

But  as  the  conduct  of  the  English  armies  was  different,  so 
was  that  of  the  whole  English  nation  at  that  time.  In  truth, 
the  circumstances  of  our  revolution  (as  it  is  called)  and  that  of 
France  are  just  the  reverse  of  each  other  in  almost  every  par- 
ticular, and  in  the  whole  spirit  of  the  transaction.  With  us  it 
was  the  case  of  a  legal  monarch  attempting  arbitrary  power  ;  in 
France  it  is  the  case  of  an  arbitrary  monarch,  beginning,  from 
whatever  cause,  to  legalize  his  authority.  The  one  was  to  be 
resisted,  the  other  was  to  be  managed  and  directed  ;  but  in 
neither  case  was  the  order  of  the  State  to  be  changed,  lest  gov- 
ernment might  be  ruined,  which  ought  only  to  be  corrected  and 
legalized.  With  us  we  got  rid  of  the  man,  and  preserved  the 
constituent  parts  of  the  State.  There  they  get  rid  of  the  con- 
stituent parts  of  the  State,  and  keep  the  man.  What  we  did 
was  in  truth  and  substance,  and  in  a  constitutional  light,  a  rev- 
olution, not  made,  but  prevented.  We  took  solid  securities ; 
we  settled  doubtful  questions;  we  corrected  anomalies  in  our 
law.  In  the  stable,  fundamental  parts  of  our  Constitution  we 
made  no  revolution  ;  no,  nor  any  alteration  at  all.  We  did  not 
impair  the  monarchy.  Perhaps  it  might  be  shown  that  we 
strengthened  it  very  considerably.  The  nation  kept  the  same 
ranks,  the  same  orders,  the  same  privileges,  the  same  franchises, 
the  same  rules  for  property,  the  same  subordinations,  the  same 
order  in  the  law,  in  the  revenue,  and  in  the  magistracy;  the 
same  Lords,  the  same  Commons,  the  same  corporations,  the 
same  electors. 

The  Church  was  not  impaired.  Her  estates,  her  majesty,  her 
splendour,  her  orders  and  gradations,  continued  the  same.  She 
was  preserved  in  her  full  elliciency,  and  cleared  only  of  a  cer- 
tain intolerance  which  was  her  weakness  and  disgrace.  The 
Church  and  the  State  were  the  same  after  the  Revolution  that 
they  were  before,  but  better  secured  in  every  part. 

Was  little  clone  because  a  revolution  was  not  made  in  the 
Constitution?  Xo!  Every  thing  was  done,  because  we  com- 
menced with  reparation,  not  with  ruin.  Accordingly  the  State 


THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE.          163 

flourished.  Instead  of  lying  as  dead,  in  a  sort  of  trance,  or  ex- 
posed, as  some  others,  in  an  epileptic  fit,  to  the  pity  or  derision 
of  the  world,  for  her  wild,  ridiculous,  convulsive  movements, 
impotent  to  every  purpose  but  that  of  dashing  out  her  brains 
against  the  pavement,  Great  Britain  rose  above  the  standard 
even  of  her  former  self.  An  era  of  a  more  improved  domestic 
prosperity  then  commenced,  and  still  continues  not  only  unim- 
paired, but  growing,  under  the  wasting  hand  of  time.  All  the 
energies  of  the  country  were  awakened.  England  never  pre- 
sented a  firmer  countenance,  nor  a  more  vigorous  arm,  to  all  her 
enemies  and  to  all  her  rivals.  Europe  under  her  respired  and 
revived.  Everywhere  she  appeared  as  the  protector,  assertor, 
or  avenger  of  liberty.  A  war  was  made  and  supported  against 
fortune  itself.  The  treaty  of  Ryswiek,  which  iirst  limited  the 
power  of  France,  was  soon  after  made:  the  Grand  Alliance  very 
shortly  followed,  which  shook  to  the  foundations  the  dreadful 
power  which  menaced  the  independence  of  mankind.  The 
States  of  Europe  lay  happy  under  the  shade  of  a  great  and  free 
monarchy,  which  knew  how  to  be  great  without  endangering  its 
own  peace  at  home,  or  the  internal  or  external  peace  of  any  of 
its  neighbours. 


THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE.11 

I  FIND  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel  profaning  the  beautiful  and 
prophetic  ejaculation,  commonly  called  Nunc  Dimittis,  made  on 

II  The  pages  that  follow  under  this  heading  arc  from  Burkc's  groat  paper, 
published  in  the  Fall  of  1790,  its  full  title  being,  "  llcnYctions  on  the  Revolution 
in  France,  and  on  the  Proceedings  of  certain  Societies  in  London  relative  to  that 
Event-  in  a  Letter  intended  to  have  been  Bent  to  U  Gentleman  In  Paris."    This 
French  ''Gentleman "  was  M.  Dupont,  who  had  visited  Burke  at  Bcaconsflcld, 
and  earnestly  requested  an  expression  of  his  judgment  on  the  subject  in  ques- 
tion.   The  great  moral  and  social  earthquake,  known  as  the  French  devolution, 
dates  from  the  Spring  of  J^s'.i.    One  of  the  Societies  here  referred  to  was  "The 
Revolution  Society,"  working  in  sympathy  and  correspondence  with  the.  leaders 
of  the  movement  in  France,  and  wishing  to  bring  about  a  similar  upheaving  in 
hn^land.    On  the  4th  of  November,  17*!>,  Dr.  Uichard  Price,  an  eminent  dissent- 
ing minister,  an  amiable  and  benevolent  man,  and  justly  distinguished  for  his 
scientillc  attainments,  preached  a  sermon  at  the  mceting-housc  of  Old  Jewry,  in 
furtherance  of  the  cause;  the  worthy  man  being  put  so  far  beside  himself  by  the 
prevailing  delirium  and  frenzy,  as  to  commit  the  extravagance  here  commented 
on  so  severely.    Burke  watched  the  progress  of  things  in  France  with  the  in- 

intercst,  his  mind  all  the  while  growing  bigger  and  bigger  with  tho 
theme,  till  at  last  it  broke  forth  in  this  overwhelming  torrent  of  eloquence  and 
wisdom,  which  soon  swept  away  whatever  chances  there  may  have  boeu.  of 
getting  up  a  French  Revolution  in  England. 


1G4  BURKE. 

the  first  presentation  of  our  Saviour  in  the  Temple,  and  apply- 
ing it,  with  an  inhuman  and  unnatural  rapture,  to  the  most 
horrid,  atrocious,  and  afflicting  spectacle  that  perhaps  ever  was 
exhibited  to  the  pity  and  indignation  of  mankind.  This  leading 
in  triumph,  a  thing  in  its  best  form  unmanly  and  irreligious, 
which  fills  our  preacher  with  such  unhallowed  transports,  must 
shock,  I  believe,  the  moral  taste  of  every  well-born  mind. 
Several  English  were  the  stupefied  and  indignant  spectators  of 
that  triumph.  It  was  (unless  we  have  been  strangely  deceived) 
a  spectacle  more  resembling  a  procession  of  American  savages. 
entering  into  Onondaga,  after  some  of  their  murders,  called  vic- 
tories, and  leading  into  hovels  hung  round  with  scalps  their  cap- 
tives, overpowered  with  the  scoffs  and  buffets  of  women  as 
ferocious  as  themselves,  much  more  than  it  resembled  the  tri- 
umphal pomp  of  a  civilized,  martial  nation;  —  if  a  civilized  na- 
tion, or  any  men  who  had  a  sense  of  generosity,  were  capable  of 
a  personal  triumph  over  the  fallen  and  atllieted. 

This,  my  dear  Sir,  was  not  the  triumph  of  France.  I  must 
believe  that,  as  a  nation,  it  overwhelmed  you  with  shame  and 
horror.  I  must  believe  that  the  National  Assembly  find  them- 
selves in  a  state  of  the  greatest  humiliation  in  not  being  able  to 
punish  the  authors  of  this  triumph,  or  the  actors  in  it ;  and  that 
they  are  in  a  situation  in  which  any  inquiry  they  may  make 
upon  the  subject  must  be  destitute  even  of  the  appearance  of 
liberty  or  impartiality.  The  apology  of  that  Assembly  is  found 
in  their  situation  ;  but  when  we  approve  what  they  must  bear, 
it  is  in  us  the  degenerate  choice  of  a  vitiated  mind. 

With  a  compelled  appearance  of  deliberation,  they  vote  under 
the  dominion  of  a  stern  necessity.  They  sit  in  the  heart,  as  it 
were,  of  a  foreign  republic:  they  have  their  residence  in  a  city 
whose  constitution  has  emanated  neither  from  the  charter  of 
their  King  nor  from  their  legislative  power.  There  they  are 
surrounded  by  an  army  not  raised  either  by  the  authority  of 
their  Crown  or  by  their  command ;  and  which,  if  they  should 
order  it  to  dissolve  itself,  would  instantly  dissolve  them.  There 
they  sit,  after  a  gang  of  assassins  had  driven  away  some  hun- 
dreds of  the  members  ;  whilst  those  who  held  the  same  moder- 
ate principles,  with  more  patience  or  better  hope,  continued 
every  day  exposed  to  outrageous  insults  and  murderous  threats. 
There  a  majority,  sometimes  real,  sometimes  pretended,  captive 
itself,  compels  a  captive  King  to  issue  as  royal  edicts,  at  third 
hand,  the  polluted  nonsense  of  their  most  licentious  and  giddy 
coffee-houses.  It  is  notorious  that  all  their  measures  are  de- 
cided before  they  are  debated.  It  is  beyond  doubt>  that,  under 
the  terror  of  the  bayonet,  and  the  lamp-post,  and  the  torch  to 
their  houses,  they  are  obliged  to  adopt  all  the  crude  and  desper- 


THE   REVOLUTION  IN   FRANCE.  1G5 

ate  measures  suggested  by  clubs  composed  of  a  monstrous 
medley  of  all  conditions,  tongues,  and  nations.  Among  these 
are  found  persons,  in  comparison  of  whom  Catiline  would  bo 
thought  scrupulous,  and  Cethegus  a  man  of  sobriety  and  mod- 
eration. Nor  is  it  in  these  clubs  alone  that  the  public  measures 
are  deformed  into  monsters.  They  undergo  a  previous  distor- 
tion in  academies,  intended  as  so  many  seminaries  for  these 
clubs,  which  are  set  up  in  all  the  places  of  public  resort.  In 
these  meetings  of  all  sorts,  every  counsel,  in  proportion  as  it  is 
daring  and  violent  and  perfidious,  is  taken  for  the  mark  of  supe- 
rior genius.  Humanity  and  compassion  are  ridiculed  as  the 
fruits  of  superstition  and  ignorance.  Tenderness  to  individuals 
is  considered  as  treason  to  the  public.  Liberty  is  always  to  bo 
estimated  perfect  as  property  is  rendered  insecure.  Amidst  as- 
sassination, massacre,  and  confiscation,  perpetrated  or  medi- 
tated, they  are  forming  plans  for  the  good  order  of  future  soci- 
ety. Embracing  in  their  arms  the  carcasses  of  base  criminals, 
and  promoting  their  relations  on  the  title  of  their  offences,  they 
drive  hundreds  of  virtuous  persons  to  the  same  end,  by  forcing 
them  to  subsist  by  beggary  or  by  crime. 

The  Assembly,  their  organ,  acts  before  them  the  farce  of 
deliberation  with  as  little  decency  as  liberty.  They  act  like  the 
comedians  of  a  fair  before  a  riotous  audience  ;  they  act  amidst 
the  tumultuous  cries  of  a  mixed  mob  of  ferocious  men,  and  of 
women  lost  to  shame,  who,  according  to  their  insolent  fancies, 
direct,  control,  applaud,  explode  them ;  and  sometimes  mix 
and  take  their  seats  amongst  them ;  domineering  over  them 
with  a  strange  mixture  of  servile  petulance  and  proud,  pre- 
sumptuous authority.  As  they  have  inverted  order  in  all  things, 
the  gallery  is  in  the  place  of  the  House.  This  Assembly, 
which  overthrows  kings  and  kingdoms,  has  not  even  the  physi- 
ognomy and  aspect  of  a  grave  legislative  body, — ncc  color 
rtf,  n«-  fr'nitt  ulla  scnatus.1  They  have  a  power  given  to 
them,  like  that  of  the  evil  principle,  to  subvert  and  destroy  ;  but 
none  to  construct,  except  such  machines  as  may  be  fitted  for 
further  subversion  and  further  destruction. 

Who  is  there  that  admires,  and  from  the  heart  is  attached  to, 
national  representative  assemblies,  but  must  turn  with  horror 
and  disgust  from  such  a  profane  burlesque  and  abominable 
perversion  of  that  sacred  institute?  Lovers  of  monarchy, 
lovers  of  republics,  must  alike  abhor  it.  The  members  of  your 
Assembly  must  themselves  groan  under  the  tyranny  of  which 
they  have  all  the  shame,  none  of  the  direction,  and  little  of  the 

1  Neither  any  character  of  command  uor  the  slightest  aspect  or  countenance 
of  a  senate. 


1G6  BUIIKE. 

profit.  I  am  sure  many  of  the  members  who  compose  even  the 
majority  of  that  body  must  feel  as  I  do,  notwithstanding  the 
applauses  of  the  Revolution  Society.  Miserable  King  !  misera- 
ble Assembly !  How  must  that  Assembly  be  silently  scandal- 
ized with  those  of  their  members  who  could  call  a  day,  which 
seemed  to  blot  the  Sun  out  of  heaven,  un  beau  jour!2  How 
must  they  be  inwardly  indignant  at  hearing  others,  who 
thought  fit  to  declare  tD  them,  "that  the  vessel  of  the  State 
would  fly  forward  in  her  course  towards  regeneration  with 
more  speed  than  ever,"  from  the  stiff  gale  of  treason  and 
murder  which  preceded  our  preacher's  triumph  !  What  must 
they  have  felt,  whilst,  with  outward  patience  and  inward 
indignation,  they  heard  of  the  slaughter  of  innocent  gentlemen 
in  their  houses,  that  "the  blood  spilt  was  not  the  most  pure  ! " 
What  must  they  have  felt,  when  they  were  besieged  by  com- 
plaints of  disorders  which  shook  their  country  to  its  founda- 
tions, at  being  compelled  coolly  to  tell  the  complainants  that 
they  were  under  the  protection  of  the  law,  and  that  they  would 
address  the  King  (the  captive  King)  to  cause  the  laws  to  be 
enforced  for  their  protection  ;  when  the  enslaved  Ministers  of 
that  captive  King  had  formally  notified  to  them,  that  there  was 
neither  law,  nor  authority,  nor  power  left  to  protect  I  What 
must  t^icy  have  felt  at  being  obliged,  as  a  felicitation  on  the 
present  new  year,  to  request  their  captive  King  to  .forget  the 
stormy  period  of  the  last,  on  account  of  the  great  good  which 
he  was  likely  to  produce  to  his  people  ;  to  the  complete  attain- 
ment of  which  good  they  adjourned  the  practical  demonstra- 
tions of  their  loyalty,  assuring  him  of  their  obedience,  when  he 
should  no  longer  possess  any  authority  to  command  ! 

This  address  was  made  with  much  good-nature  and  affection, 
to  be  sure.  But  among  the  revolutions  in  France  must  be 
reckoned  a  considerable  revolution  in  their  ideas  of  politeness. 
In  England  we  arc  said  to  learn  manners  at  second-hand  from 
your  side  of  the  water,  and  that  we  dress  our  behaviour  in  the 
frippery  of  France.  If  so,  we  are  still  in  the  old  cut ;  and  have 
not  so  far  conformed  to  the  new  Parisian  mode  of  good  breed- 
ing, as  to  think  it  quite  in  the  most  refined  strain  of  delicate 
compliment  (whether  in  condolence  or  congratulation)  to  say, 
to  the  most  humiliated  creature  that  crawls  upon  the  earth, 
that  great  public  benefits  arc  derived  from  the  murder  of  his 
servants,  the  attempted  assassination  of  himself  and  of  his 
wife,  and  the  mortification,  disgrace,  and  degradation,  that  he 
has.personally  suffered.  It  is  a  topic  of  consolation  which  our 

2    This  "  auspicious  day  "  was  the  6th  of  October,  1789,  when  the  "  leailing  in 
triumph  "  took  place,  which  is  described  iu  full  a  little  further  on. 


THE    REVOLUTION   IN   FRANCE.  1G7 

ordinary  of  Newgate  would  be  too  humane  to  use  to  a  criminal 
at  the  foot  of  the  gallows.  I  should  have  thought  that  the 
hangman  of  Paris,  now  that  he  is  liberalized  by  the  vote  of  the 
National  Assembly,  and  is  allowed  his  rank  and  arms  in  the 
herald's  college  of  the  rights  of  men,  would  be  too  generous, 
too  gallant  a  man,  too  full  of  the  sense  of  his  new  dignity,  to 
employ  that  cutting  consolation  to  any  of  the  persons  whom 
the  leze  nation*  might  bring  under  the  administration  of  his 
executive  power. 

A  man  is  fallen  indeed,  when  he  is  thus  flattered.  The 
anodyne  draught  of  oblivion, 'thus  drugged,  is  well  calculated 
to  preserve  a  galling  wakcf ulness,  and  to  feed  the  living  ulcer 
of  a  corroding  memory.  Thus  to  administer  the  opiate  potion 
of  amnesty,  powdered  with  all  the  ingredients  of  scorn  and 
contempt,  is  to  hold  to  his  lips,  instead  of  "the  balm  of  hurt 
minds,"  the  cup  of  human  misery  full  to  the  brim,  and  to  force 
him  to  drink  it  to  the  dregs. 

Yielding  to  reasons,  at  least  as  forcible  as  those  which  were 
so  delicately  urged  in  the  compliment  on  the  new  year,  the 
King  of  France  will  probably  endeavour  to  forget  these  events 
and  that  compliment.  But  history,  who  keeps  a  durable  record 
of  all  our  acts,  and  exercises  her  awful  censure  over  the  pro- 
ceedings of  all  sorts  of  sovereigns,  will  not  forget  either  those 
events,  or  the  era  of  this  liberal  refinement  in  the  intercourse 
of  mankind.  History  will  record  that,  on  the  morning  of  the 
Cth  of  ( )ctol)i.«r,  ITS-),  the,  King  and  Queen  of  France,  after  a  day 
of  confusion,  alarm,  dismay,  and  slaughter,  lay  down,  under 
the  pledged  security  of  public  faith,  to  indulge  nature  in  a  feu- 
hours  of  respite,  and  troubled,  melancholy  repose.  From  this 
.sleep  the  Queen  was  lirst  startled  by  the  voice  of  the  sentinel 
at  her  door,  who  cried  out  to  her  to  save  herself  by  flight ;  that 
this  was  the  last  proof  of  fidelity  he  could  give  ;  that  they  were 
upon  him,  and  he  was  dead.  Instantly  he  was  cut  down.  A 
band  of  cruel  ruflians  and  assassins,  reeking  with  his  blood, 
rushed  into  the  chamber  of  the  Queen,  and  pierced  with  a 
hundred  ^trokes  of  bayonets  and  poniards  the  bed,  from 
v*  hence  this  persecuted  woman  had  but  just  time  to  fly  almost 
naked,  and,  through  ways  unknown  to  the  murderers,  had 
pod  t  .1  >cek  refuge  at  the  feet  of  a  King  and  husband,  not 
ro  of  his  own  life  for  a  moment. 

This  King,  to  say  no  more  of  him,  and  this  Queen,  and  their 
infant  children,  (who  once  would  have  been  the  pride  and  hope 
of  a  great  and  generous  people,)  were  then  forced  to  abandon 
the  sanctuary  of  the  most  splendid  palace  in  the  world,  which 

3    Leze  nation  is  treason  against  the  nation. 


1 G8  BUKKE. 

they  left  swimming  in  blood,  polluted  by  massacre,  and  strewed 
with  scattered  limbs  and  mutilated  carcasses.  Thence  they 
were  conducted  into  the  capital  of  their  kingdom.  Two  had 
been  selected  from  the  unprovoked,  unrcsisted,  promiscuous 
slaughter,  which  was  made  of  the  gentlemen  of  birth  and 
family  who  composed  the  King's  body  guard.  These  two 
gentlemen,  with  all  the  parade  of  an  execution  of  justice,  were 
cruelly  and  publicly  dragged  to  the  block,  and  beheaded  in  the 
great  court  of  the  palace.  Their  heads  were  stuck  upon  spears, 
and  led  the  procession  ;  whilst  the  royal  captives  who  followed 
in  the  train  were  slowly  moved  a'long,  amidst  the  horrid  yells, 
and  shrilling  screams,  and  frantic  dances,  and  infamous  con- 
tumelies, and  all  the  unutterable  abominations  of  the  furies  of 
Hell,  in  the  abused  shape  of  the  vilest  of  women.  After  they 
had  been  made  to  taste,  drop  by  drop,  more  than  the  bitterness 
of  death,  in  the  slow  torture  of  a  journey  of  twelve  miles, 
protracted  to  six  hours,  they  were,  under  a  guard  composed  of 
those  very  soldiers  who  had  thus  conducted  them  through  this 
famous  triumph,  lodged  in  one  of  the  old  palaces  of  Paris,  now 
converted  into  a  bastile  for  kings. 

Is  this  a  triumph  to  be  consecrated  at  altars?  to  be  commem- 
orated with  grateful  thanksgiving?  to  be  offered  to  the  Divine 
Humanity  with  fervent  prayer  and  enthusiastic  ejaculation? 
These  Theban  and  Thracian  orgies,  acted  in  France,  and  ap- 
plauded only  in  the  Old  Jewry,  I  assure  you,  kindle  prophetic 
enthusiasm  in  the  minds  but  of  very  few  people  in  this  king- 
dom :  although  a  saint  and  apostle,  who  may  have  revelations 
of  his  own,  and  who  has  completely  vanquished  all  the  mean 
superstitions  of  the  heart,  may  incline  to  think  it  piou.s  and 
decorous  to  compare  it  with  the  entrance  into  the  world  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace,  proclaimed  in  a  holy  temple  by  a  venerable 
sage,  and  not  long  before  not  worse  announced  by  the  voice  of 
Angels  to  the  quiet  innocence  of  shepherds. 

At  first  I  was  at  a  loss  to  account  for  this  fit  of  unguarded 
transport.  1  knew  indeed  that  the  sufferings  of  monarchs  make 
a  delicious  repast  to  some  sort  of  palates.  There  were  rellec- 
tions  which  might  serve  to  keep  this  appetite  within  some 
bounds  of  temperance.  But,  when  I  took  one  circumstance 
into  my  consideration,  I  was  obliged  to  confess  that  much  al- 
lowance ought  to  be  made  for  the  Society,  and  that  the  tempta- 
tion was  too  strong  for  common  discretion:  I  mean,  the  cir- 
cumstance of  the  lo  Pa?an  of  the  triumph,  the  animating  cry 
which  called  "for  all  the  BISHOPS  to  be  hanged  on  the  lamp- 
posts," might  well  have  brought  forth  a  burst  of  enthusiasm  on 
the  foreseen  consequences  of  this  happy  day.  I  allow  to  so 
much  enthusiasm  some  little  deviation  from  prudence.  I  allow 


THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE.          169 

this  prophet  to  break  forth  into  hymns  of  joy  and  thanksgiving 
on  an  event  which  appears  like  the  precursor  of  the  Millennium, 
and  the  projected  Fifth  Monarchy,  in  the  destruction  of  all 
Church  establishments.  There  was,  however,  (as  in  all  human 
affairs  there  is,)  in  the  midst  of  this  joy,  something  to  exercise 
the  patience  of  these  worthy  gentlemen,  and  to  try  the  long- 
suffering  of  their  faith.  The  actual  murder  of  the  King  and 
Queen,  and  their  child,  was  wanting  to  the  other  auspicious  cir- 
cumstances of  this  "  beautiful  day."  The  actual  murder  of  the 
Bishops,  though  called  for  by  so  many  holy  ejaculations,  was 
also  wanting.  A  group  of  regicide  and  sacrilegious  slaughter 
was  indeed  boldly  sketched,  but  it  was  only  sketched.  It  un- 
happily was  left  unfinished,  in  this  great  history-piece  of  the 
Massacre  of  Innocents.  What  hardy  pencil  of  a  great  master, 
from  the  school  of  the  rights  of  men,  will  finish  it,  is  to  be  seen 
hereafter.  The  age  has  not  yet  the  complete  benefit  of  that 
diffusion  of  knowledge  that  has  undermined  superstition  and 
error  ;  and  the  King  of  France  wants  another  object  or  two  to 
consign  to  oblivion,  in  consideration  of  all  the  good  which  is  to 
arise  from  his  own  sufferings,  and  the  patriotic  crimes  of  an 
enlightened  age. 

Although  this  work  of  our  new  light  and  knowledge  did  not 
go  to  the  length  that  in  all  probability  it  was  intended  to  be 
carried,  yet  I  must  think  that  such  treatment  of  any  human 
creatures  must  be  shocking  to  any  but  those  who  are  made  for 
accomplishing  revolutions.  But  I  cannot  stop  here.  Influenced 
by  the  inborn  feelings  of  my  nature,  and  not  being  illuminated 
by  a  single  ray  of  this  new-sprung  modern  light,  I  confess  to 
you,  Sir,  that  the  exalted  rank  of  the  persons  suffering,  and 
particularly  the  sex,  the  beauty,  and  the  amiable  qualities  of 
the  descendant  of  so  many  kings  and  emperors,  with  the  ten- 
der age  of  royal  infants,  insensible  only  through  infancy  and 
innocence  of  the  cruel  outrages  to  which  their  parents  were 
exposed,  instead  of  being  a  subject  of  exultation,  adds  not  a 
litile  to  my  sensibility  on  that  most  melancholy  occasion. 

I  hear  that  the  august  person,  who  was  the  principal  object 
of  our  preacher's  triumph,  though  he  supported  himself,  felt 
much  on  that  shameful  occasion.  As  a  man,  it  became  him  to 
feel  for  hi*  \vifo  and  his  children,  and  the  faithful  guards  of  his 
person,  that  were  massacred  in  cold  blood  about  him;  as  a 
prince,  it  became  him  to  feel  for  the  strange  and  frightful  trans- 
formation of  his  civilized  subjects,  and  to  be  more  grieved  for 
them  than  solicitous  for  himself.  It  derogates  little  from  his 
fortitude,  while  it  adds  infinitely  to  the  honour  of  his  human- 
ity. I  am  very  sorry  to  say  it,  very  sorry  indeed,  that  such  per- 


170  BURKE. 

sonages  are  in  a  situation  in  which  it  is  not  becoming  in  us  to 
praise  the  virtues  of  the  great. 

I  hear,  and  I  rejoice  to  hear,  that  the  great  lady,  the  other  ob- 
ject of  the  triumph,  has  borne  that  day,  (one  is  interested  that 
beings  made  for  suffering  should  suffer  well,)  and  that  she  boars 
all  the  succeeding  days,  that  she  bears  the  imprisonment  of  her 
husband,  and  her  own  captivity,  and  the  exile  of  her  friends, 
and  the  insulting  adulation  of  addresses,  and  the  whole  weight 
of  her  accumulated  wrongs,  with  a  serene  patience,  in  a  manner 
suited  to  her  rank  and  race,  and  becoming  the  offspring  of  a 
sovereign  distinguished  for  her  piety  and  her  courage:4  that, 
like  her,  she  has  lofty  sentiments ;  that  she  feels  with  the  dig- 
nity of  a  Roman  matron  ;  that  in  the  last  extremity  she  will 
save  herself  from  the  last  disgrace  ;  and  that,  if  she  must  fall, 
she  will  fall  by  no  ignoble  hand. 

It  is  now  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  since  I  saw  the  Queen  of 
France,  then  the  Dauphiness,  at  Versailles  ;  and  surely  never 
lighted  on  this  orb,  which  she  hardly  seemed  to  touch,  a  more 
delightful  vision.  I  saw  her  just  above  the  horizon,  decorating 
and  cheering  the  elevated  sphere  she  just  began  to  move  in,— 
glittering  like  the  morning-star,  full  of  life,  and  splendour,  and 
joy.  O,  what  a  revolution!  and  what  a  heart  must  I  have  to 
contemplate  without  emotion  that  elevation  and  that  fall!  Lit- 
tle did  I  dream,  when  she  added  titles  of  veneration  to  those  of 
enthusiastic,  distant,  respectful  love,  that  she  would  ever  bo 
obliged  to  carry  the  sharp  antidote  against  disgrace  concealed 
in  that  bosom:  little  did  I  dream  that  I  should  have  lived  to  see 
such  disasters  fallen  upon  her  in  a  nation  of  gallant  men,  in  a 
nation  of  men  of  honour,  and  of  cavaliers.  I  thought  ten  thou- 
sand swords  must  have  leaped  from  their  scabbards  to  avenue 
even  a  look  that  threatened  her  with  insult.5  But  the  age  of 
chivalry  is  gone.  That  of  sophisters,  economists,  and  calcula- 
tors, has  succeeded  ;  and  the  glory  of  Europe  is  extinguished 
for  ever.  Never,  never  more  shall  we  behold  that  generous 
loyalty  to  rank  and  sex,  that  proud  submission,  that  dignified 
obedience,  that  subordination  of  the  heart,  which  kept  alive, 
even  in  servitude  itself,  the  spirit  of  an  exalted  freedom.  The 

4  Marie  Antoinette,  the  Queen  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  was  the  daughter  of 
Maria  Theresa,  the  heroic  Empress  of  Austria. 

5  Some  persons,  and  among  them  Sir  Philip  Francis,  one  of  Burke's  warmest 
friends,  censured  this  famous  passage,  not  only  as  containing  bad  doctrine,  but 
as  written  in  bad  taste.    Robert  Hall,  the  distinguished  Baptist  minister,  a  man 
of  great  eloquence  and  power,  but  utterly  opposed  to  Burke's  opinions,  gave  it 
as  his  judgment,  that  "  those  who  could  read  without  rapture  what  Burke  had 
written  of  the  unhappy  Queen  of  France,  might  have  merits  as  rcasoners,  but 
ought  at  once  to  resign  all  pretensions  to  be  considered  men  of  taste." 


THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE.          171 

unbought  grace  of  life,  the  cheap  defence  of  nations,  the  nurse 
of  manly  sentiment  and  heroic  enterprise,  is  gonel  It  is  gone, 
that  sensibility  of  principle,  that  chastity  of  honour,  which  felt 
a  stain  like  a  wound,  which  inspired  courage  whilst  it  mitigated 
ferocity,  which  ennobled  whatever  it  touched,  and  under  which 
vice  itself  lost  half  its  evil,  by  losing  all  its  grossness. 

This  mixed  system  of  opinion  and  sentiment  had  its  origin  in 
the  ancient  chivalry  ;  and  the  principle,  though  varied  in  its  ap- 
pearance by  the  varying  state  of  human  affairs,  subsisted  and 
influenced  through  a  long  succession  of  generations,  even  to  the 
time  we  live  in.  If  it  should  ever  be  totally  extinguished,  the 
loss  I  fear  will  be  great.  It  is  this  which  has  given  its  character 
to  modern  Europe.  It  is  this  which  has  distinguished  it  under 
all  its  forms  of  government,  and  distinguished  it  to  its  advan- 
tage, from  the  States  of  Asia,  and  possibly  from  those  States 
which  nourished  in  the  most  brilliant  periods  of  the  antique 
world.  It  was  this  which,  without  confounding  ranks,  had  pro- 
duced a  noble  equality,  and  handed  it  down  through  all  the  gra- 
dations of  social  life.  Jt  was  this  opinion  which  mitigated  kings 
into  companions,  and  raised  private  men  to  be  fellows  with 
kings.  Without  force  or  opposition,  it  subdued  the  fierceness 
of  pride  and  power;  it  obliged  sovereigns  to  submit  to  the  soft 
collar  of  social  esteem,  compelled  stern  authority  to  submit  to 
elegance,  and  gave  a  dominating  vanquisher  of  laws  to  be  sub- 
dued by  manners. 

But  no\v  all  is  to  be  changed.  All  the;  pleasing  illusions 
which  made  power  gentle  and  obedience  liberal,  which  harmo- 
nized the  different  shades  of  life,  and  which,  by  a  bland  assimi- 
lation, incorporated  into  politics  the  sentiments  which  beautify 
and  soften  private  society,  are  to  be  dissolved  by  this  new  con- 
quering empire  of  light  and  reason.  All  the  decent  drapery  of 
life  is  to  be  rudely  torn  off.  All  the  superadded  ideas,  fur- 
ni>hed  from  the  wardrobe  of  a  moral  imagination,  which  the 
heart  owns  and  the  understanding  ratines,  as  necessary  to  cover 
the  defects  of  our  naked,  shivering  nature,  and  to  raise  it  to 
dignit  y  in  our  own  est  imat  ion,  are  to  be  exploded  as  a  ridiculous, 
absurd,  and  antiquated  fashion. 

On  this  scheme  of  things,  a  king  is  but  a  man,  a  queen  is  but  a 
woman  ;  a  woman  is  but  an  animal,  and  an  animal  not  of  the 
highest  order.  All  homage  paid  to  the  sex  in  general  as  such, 
and  without  distinct  views,  is  to  be  regarded  as  romance  and 
folly,  llegicide  and  parricide  and  sacrilege  are  but  fictions  of 
superstition,  corrupting  jurisprudence  by  destroying  its  simplic- 
ity. The  murder  of  a  king,  or  a  queen,  or  a  bishop,  or  a  father, 
is  only  common  homicide  ;  and  if  the  people  are  by  any  chance, 
or  in  any  way,  gainers  by  it,  a  sort  of  homicide  much  the  most 


173  BURKE. 

pardonable,  and  into  which  we  ought  not  to  make  too  severe  a 
scrutiny. 

On  the  scheme  of  this  barbarous  philosophy,  which  is  the  off- 
spring of  cold  hearts  and  muddy  understandings,  and  which  is 
as  void  of  solid  wisdom  as  it  is  destitute  of  all  tuste  and  elegance, 
laws  are  to  be  supported  only  by  their  own  terrors,  and  by  the 
concern  which  each  individual  may  find  in  them  from  his  own 
private  speculations,  or  can  spare  to  them  from  his  own  private 
interests.  In  the  groves  of  their  academy,  at  the  end  of  every 
vista,  you  see  nothing  but  the  gallows.  Nothing  is  left  which 
engages  the  affections  on  the  part  of  the  commonwealth.  On 
the  principles  of  this  mechanic  philosophy,  our  institutions  can 
never  be  embodied,  if  I  may  use  the  expression,  in  persons  ;  so 
as  to  create  in  us  love,  veneration,  admiration,  or  attachment. 
But  that  sort  of  reason  which  banishes  the  affections  is  incapa- 
ble of  filling  their  place.  These  public  affections,  combined 
with  manners,  are  required  sometimes  as  supplements,  some- 
times as  correctives,  always  as  aids  to  law.  The  precept  given 
by  a  wise  man,  as  well  as  a  great  critic,  for  the  construction  of 
poems,  is  equally  true  as  to  States:  Non  satis  cst  pulchra  csse 
poemata,  dulcia  sunto*  There  ought  to  be  a  system  of  manners 
in  every  nation,  which  a  well-formed  mind  would  be  disposed 
to  relish.  To  make  us  love  our  country,  our  country  ought  to 
be  lovely. 

But  power,  of  some  kind  or  other,  will  survive  the  shock  in 
which  manners  and  opinions  perish  ;  and  it  will  lind  other  and 
worse  means  for  its  support.  The  usurpation  which,  in  order 
to  subvert  ancient  institutions,  has  destroyed  ancient  principles, 
will  hold  power  by  arts  similar  to  those  by  which  it  has  acquired 
it.  When  the  old  feudal  and  chivalrous  spirit  of  fcalti/,  which, 
by  freeing  kings  from  fear,  freed  both  kings  and  subjects  from 
the  precautions  of  tyranny,  shall  be  extinct  in  the  minds  of 
men,  plots  and  assassinations  will  be  anticipated  by  preventive 
murder  and  preventive  confiscation,  and  that  long  roll  of  grim 
and  bloody  maxims  which  form  the  political  code  of  all  power, 
not  standing  on  its  own  honour,  and  the  honour  of  those  who 
are  to  obey  it.  Kings  will  be  tyrants  from  policy,  when  subjects 
are  rebels  from  principle. 

When  ancient  opinions  and  rules  of  life  are  taken  away,  the 
loss  cannot  possibly  be  estimated.  From  that  moment  we  have 
no  compass  to  govern  us ;  nor  can  we  know  distinctly  to  what 
port  we  steer.  Europe,  undoubtedly,  taken  in  a  mass,  was  in  a 
flourishing  condition  the  day  on  which  your  revolution  was 
completed.  How  much  of  that  prosperous  state  was  owing  to 

C    It  is  not  enough  that  poems  be  beautiful;  they  must  be  sweet  also. 


THE   REVOLUTION   IN   FRANCE.  1  ?'3 

the  spirit  of  our  old  manners  and  opinions,  is  not  easy  to  say ; 
but  as  such  causes  cannot  be  indifferent  in  their  operation,  we 
must  presume  that,  on  the  whole,  their  operation  was  beneficial. 

We  are  but  too  apt  to  consider  things  in  the  state  in  which  we 
find  them,  without  sufficiently  adverting  to  the  cause  by  which 
they  have  been  produced,  and  possibly  may  be  upheld.  Noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  that  our  manners,  our  civilization,  and 
all  the  good  things  which  are  connected  with  manners  and  with 
civilization,  have,  in  this  European  world  of  ours,  depended  for 
ages  upon  two  principles ;  and  were  indeed  the  result  of  both 
combined ;  I  mean  the  spirit  of  a  gentleman,  and  the  spirit  of 
religion.  The  nobility  and  the  clergy,  the  one  by  profession, 
the  other  by  patronage,  kept  learning  in  existence,  even  in  the 
midst  of  arms  and  confusions,  and  whilst  governments  were 
rather  in  their  causes  than  formed.  Learning  paid  back  what 
it  received  to  nobility  and  to  priesthood;  and  paid  it  with  usury, 
by  enlarging  their  ideas,  and  by  furnishing  their  minds.  Happy 
if  they  had  all  continued  to  know  their  indissoluble  union,  and 
their  proper  place  !  Happy  if  learning,  not  debauched  by  ambi- 
tion, had  been  satisfied  to  continue  the  instructor,  and  not 
aspired  to  be  master !  Along  with  its  natural  protectors  and 
guardians,  learning  will  be  cast  into  the  mire,  and  trodden 
down  under  the  hoofs  of  a  swinish  multitude.7 

If,  as  I  suspect,  modern  letters  owe  more  than  they  are  al- 
ways willing  to  own  to  ancient  manners,  so  do  other  interests 
which  we  value  full  as  much  as  they  are  worth.  Even  com- 
merce and  trade  and  manufacture,  the  gods  of  our  economical 
politicians,  are  themselves  perhaps  but  creatures ;  are  them- 
selves but  effects,  which,  as  first  causes,  we  choose  to  worship. 
They  certainly  grew  under  the  same  shade  in  which  learning 
flourished.  They  too  may  decay  with  their  natural  protecting 
principles.  With  you,  for  the  present  at  least,  they  all  threaten 
to  disappear  together.  Where  trade  and  manufactures  are 
wanting 'to  a  people,  and  the  spirit  of  nobility  and  religion  re- 
mains, sentiment  supplies,  and  not  always  ill  supplies,  their 
place  ;  but  if  commerce  and  the  arts  should  be  lost  in  an  experi- 

7  Of  course  the  author  here  had  in  mind  the  passage  of  Scripture,  "Neither 
cast  ye  y<-ur  jx-arls  before  swine,  lest  they  trample  them  under  their  feet,  and 
turn  again  and  rend  you."  An  outcry  was  raised  against  Burke  for  the  phrase 
o»ri/u'.s/t  multitude,  as  if  he  meant  to  spit  scorn  at  the  common  people  generally. 
He  meant  n<>  such  thing.  And  the  words  proved  prophetic,  being  afterwards 
fulfilled  to  the  letter,  especially  in  the  person  of  M.  Bailly,  a  man  highly  dis. 
tingui.shod  for  culture  and  liberal  attainments,  who  took  a  leading  part  in  the 
revolutionary  movement,  for  which  he  was  made  Mayor  of  Paris,  and  who  was 
among  the  first  to  be  rent  in  pieces  by  the  multitude  before  whom  he  had  cast 
Lid  intellectual  pearld.  This  was  in  the  Fall  of  1793. 


174  BUKKE. 

merit  to  try  how  well  a  State  may  stand  without  these  old  fun- 
damental principles,  what  sort  of  a  thing  must  be  a  nation  of 
gross,  stupid,  ferocious,  and,  at  the  same  time,  poor  and  sordid 
barbarians,  destitute  of  religion,  honour,  or  manly  pride,  pos- 
sessing nothing  at  present,  and  hoping  for  nothing  hereafter? 

I  wish  you  may  not  be  going  fast,  and  by  the  shortest  cut,  to 
that  horrible  and  disgustful  situation.  Already  there  appears 
a  poverty  of  conception,  a  coarseness  and  vulgarity,  in  all  the 
proceedings  of  the  Assembly  and  of  all  their  instructors.  Their 
liberty  is  not  liberal.  Their  science  is  presumptuous  ignorance. 
Their  humanity  is  savage  and  brutal. 

It  is  not  clear  whether  in  England  we  learned  those  grand 
and  decorous  principles  and  manners,  of  which  considerable 
traces  yet  remain,  from  you,  or  whether  you  took  them  from  us. 
But  to  you,  I  think,  we  trace  them  best.  You  seem  to  me  to  be 
gentis  incunabula  nostrw,9  France  has  always  more  or  less  influ- 
enced manners  in  England  ;  and  when  your  fountain  is  choked 
up  and  polluted,  the  stream  will  not  run  long,  or  not  run  clear, 
with  us,  or  perhaps  with  any  nation.  This  gives  all  Europe,  in 
my  opinion,  but  too  close  and  connected  a  concern  in  what  is 
done  in  France.  Excuse  me,  therefore,  if  I  have  dwelt  too  long 
on  the  atrocious  spectacle  of  the  Gth  of  October,  1789,  or  have 
given  too  much  scope  to  the  reflections  which  have  arisen  in  my 
mind  on  occasion  of  the  most  important  of  all  revolutions, 
which  may  be  dated  from  that  day,—  I  mean  a  revolution  in  sen- 
timents, manners,  and  moral  opinions.  As  things  now  stand, 
with  every  thing  respectable  destroyed  without  us,  and  an  at- 
tempt to  destroy  within  us  every  principle  of  respect,  one  is 
almost  forced  to  apologize  lor  harbouring  the  common  feelings 
of  men. 

Why  do  I  feel  so  differently  from  the  Reverend  Dr.  Price, 
and  those  of  his  lay  flock  who  will  choose  to  adopt  the  senti- 
ments of  his  discourse?  For  this  plain  reason,— because  it  is 
natural  I  should  ;  because  we  are  so  made,  as  to  be  affected  at 
such  spectacles  with  melancholy  sentiments  upon  the  unstable 
condition  of  mortal  prosperity,  and  the  tremendous  uncertainty 
of  human  greatness  ;  because  in  those  natural  feelings  we 
learn  great  lessons ;  because  in  events  like  these  our  passions 
instruct  our  reason  ;  because  when  kings  are  hurled  from  their 
thrones  by  the  Supreme  Director  of  this  great  drama,  and 
become  the  objects  of  insult  to  the  base,  and  of  pity  to  the 
good,  we  behold  such  disasters  in  the  moral,  as  we  should 
behold  a  miracle  in  the  physical  order  of  things.  AVe  are 
alarmed  into  reflection ;  our  minds  (as  it  has  long  since  been 

8    The  nursery  or  cradle  of  our  nation. 


THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE.          175 

observed)  are  purified  by  terror  and  pity ;  our  weak,  unthinking 
pride  is  humbled  under  the  dispensations  of  a  mysterious 
wisdom.  Some  tears  might  be  drawn  from  me,  if  such  a 
spectacle  were  exhibited  on  the  stage.  I  should  be  truly 
ashamed  of  finding  in  myself  that  superficial,  theatric  sense  of 
painted  distress,  whilst  I  could  exult  over  it  in  real  life.  With 
such  a  perverted  mind,  I  could  never  venture  to  show  my  face 
at  a  tragedy.  People  would  think  the  tears  that  Garrick  for- 
merly, or  that  Siddons  not  long  since,  extorted  from  me,  were 
the  tears  of  hypocrisy ;  I  should  know  them  to  be  the  tears 
of  folly. 

Indeed  the  theatre  is  a  better  school  of  moral  sentiments 
than  churches,  where  the  feelings  of  humanity  are  thus  out- 
raged. Poets  who  have  to  deal  with  an  audience  not  yet 
graduated  in  the  school  of  the  rights  of  men,  and  who  must 
apply  themselves  to  the  moral  constitution  of  the  heart,  would 
not  dare  to  produce  such  a  triumph  as  a  matter  of  exultation. 
There,  whore  men  follow  their  natural  impulses,  they  would 
not  bear  the  odious  maxims  of  a  Machiavelian  policy,  whether 
applied  to  the  attainment  of  monarchical  or  democratic  tyranny. 
They  would  reject  them  on  the  modern,  as  they  once  did  on 
the  ancient  stage,  whore  they  could  not  bear  even  the  hypo- 
thetical proposition  of  such  wickedness  in  the  mouth  of  a 
personated  tyrant,  though  suitable  to  the  character  he  sus- 
tained. No  theatric  audience  in  Athens  would  boar  what  has 
been  borne,  in  the  midst  of  the  real  tragedy  of  this  triumphal 
duy,— a  principal  actor  weighing,  as  it  were  in  scales  hung  in  a 
shop  of  horrors,  so  much  actual  crime  against  so  much  contin- 
gent advantage,  smd,  after  putting  in  and  out  weights,  declaring 
that  the  balance  was  on  the  side  of  the  advantages.  They 
would  not  bear  to  >ee  the  crimes  of  new  democracy  posted  as  in 
a  ledger  against  the  crimes  of  old  despotism,  and  the  book- 
keepers of  politics  finding  democracy  still  in  debt,  but  by  no 
m.-ans  unable  or  unwilling  to  pay  the  balance.  In  the  theatre, 
the  first  intuitive  glance,  without  any  elaborate  procoss  of 
'.iiing,  will  .show  that  this  method  of  political  computation 
would  justify  every  extent  of  crime.  They  would  see  that  on 
those  principles,  even  where  the  very  worst  acts  were  not 
perpetrated,  it  was  owing  rather  to  the  fortune  of  the  conspira- 
tors than  to  their  parsimony  in  the  expenditure  of  treachery 
and  blood.  They  would  soon  see  that  criminal  means  once 
tolerated  are  soon  preferred.  They  present  a  shorter  cut  to 
the,  object  than  through  the  highway  of  the  moral  virtues. 
Justifying  perfidy  and  murder  for  public  benefit,  public  benefit 
would  soon  become  the.  pretext,  and  perfidy  and  murder  the 
end ;  until  rapacity,  malice,  revenge,  and  fear  more  dreadful 


176  BURKE. 

than  revenge,  could  satiate  their  insatiable  appetites.  Such 
must  be  the  consequences  of  losing,  in  the  splendour  of  these 
triumphs  of  the  rights  of  men,  all  natural  sense  of  wrong  and 
right. 

To  tell  you  the  truth,  my  dear  Sir,  I  think  the  honour  of  our 
nation  to  be  somewhat  concerned  in  the  disclaimer  of  the 
proceedings  of  this  Society  of  the  Old  Jewry  and  the  London 
Tavern.9  I  have  no  man's  proxy.  I  speak  only  for  myself, 
when  I  disclaim,  as  I  do  with  all  possible  earnestness,  all  com- 
munion with  the  actors  in  that  triumph,  or  with  the  admirers 
of  it.  When  I  assert  any  thing  else,  as  concerning  the  people 
of  England,  I  speak  from  observation,  not  from  authority  ;  but 
I  speak  from  the  experience  I  have  had  in  a  pretty  extensive 
and  mixed  communication  with  the  inhabitants  of  this  king- 
dom, of  all  descriptions  and  ranks,  and  after  a  course  of  atten- 
tive observation,  began  early  in  life,  and  continued  for  nearly 
forty  years.  I  have  often  been  astonished,  considering  that  we 
are  divided  from  you  but  by  a  slender  dyke  of  about  twenty- 
four  miles,  and  that  the  mutual  intercourse  between  the  two 
countries  has  lately  been  very  great,  to  find  how  little  you  seem 
to  know  of  us.  I  suspect  that  this  is  owing  to  your  forming  a 
judgment  of  this  nation  from  certain  publications,  which  do, 
very  erroneously,  if  they  do  at  all,  represent  the  opinions  and 
dispositions  generally  prevalent  in  England.  The  vanity, 
restlessness,  petularice,  and  spirit  of  intrigue,  of  several  petty 
cabals,  who  attempt  to  hide  their  total  want  of  consequence  in 
bustle  and  noise,  and  pufling,  and  mutual  quotation  of  each 
other,  make  you  imagine  that  our  contemptuous  neglect  of 
their  abilities  is  a  mark  of  general  acquiescence  in  their  opin- 
ions. No  such  thing,  I  assure  you.  Because  half  a  dozen 
grasshoppers  under  a  fern  make  the  field  ring  with  their  impor- 
tunate chink,  whilst  thousands  of  great  cattle,  reposing  beneath 
the  shadow  of  the  British  oak,  chew  the  cud  and  are  silent, 
pray  do  not  imagine  that  those  who  make  the  noise  are  the 
only  inhabitants  of  the  field;  that  of  course  they  are  many  in 
number ;  or  that^  after  all,  they  are  other  than  the  little, 
shrivelled,  meagre,  hopping,  though  loud  and  troublesome, 
insects  of  the  hour. 

I  almost  venture  to  affirm  that  not  one  in  a  hundred  amongst 
us  participates  in  the  "triumph"  of  the  Revolution  Society.  If 
the  King  and  Queen  of  Erance,  and  their  children,  were  to  fall 
into  our  hands  by  the  chance  of  war,  in  the  most  acrimonious 

9  After  listening  to  Dr.  Price's  sermon,  the  club  adjourned  to  the  London 
Tavern,  \vhere  they  celebrated  the  millennial  dawn  with  a  more  natural  and  in- 
nocent  sort  offcast. 


THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE.          177 

of  all  hostilities,  (I  deprecate  such  an  event,  I  deprecate  such 
hostility,)  they  would  be  treated  with  another  sort  of  tri- 
umphal entry  into  London.  We  formerly  have  had  a  King  of 
France  in  that  situation  : 10  you  have  read  how  he  was  treated 
by  the  victor  in  the  field ;  and  in  what  manner  he  was  after- 
wards received  in  England.  Four  hundred  years  have  gone 
over  us  ;  but  I  believe  we  are  not  materially  changed  since 
that  period.  Thanks  to  our  sullen  resistance  to  innovation, 
thanks  to  the  cold  sluggishness  of  our  national  character,  we 
still  bear  the  stamp  of  our  forefathers.  We  have  not  (as  I 
conceive)  lost  the  generosity  and  dignity  of  thinking  of  the 
fourteenth  century;  nor  as  yet  have  we  subtilized  ourselves 
into  savages.  We  are  not  the  converts  of  Rousseau ;  we  are 
not  the  disciples  of  Voltaire ;  Helvetius  has  made  no  progress 
amongst  us.  Atheists  are  not  our  preachers  ;  madmen  are  not 
our  lawgivers.  We  know  that  we  have  made  no  discoveries, 
and  we  think  that  no  discoveries  are  to  be  made,  in  morality; 
nor  many  in  the  great  principles  of  government,  nor  in  the 
ideas  of  liberty,  which  were  understood  long  before  we  were 
born,  altogether  as  well  as  they  will  be  after  the  grave  has 
heaped  its  mould  upon  our  presumption,  and  the  silent  tomb 
shall  have  imposed  its  law  on  our  pert  loquacity.  In  England 
we  have  not  yet  been  completely  embowelled  of  our  natural 
entrails  ;  we  still  feel  within  us,  and  we  cherish  and  cultivate, 
those  inbred  sentiments  which  are  the  faithful  guardians,  the 
active  monitors  of  our  duty,  the  true  supporters  of  all  liberal 
and  manly  morals.  We  have  not  been  drawn  and  trussed,  in 
order  that  we  may  be  filled,  like  stuffed  birds  in  a  museum, 
with  chaff  and  rags  and  paltry  blurred  shreds  of  paper  about 
the  rights  of  man.  We  preserve  the  whole  of  our  feelings  still 
native  and  entire,  unsophisticated  by  pedantry  and  infidelity. 
We  have  real  hearts  of  flesh  and  blood  beating  in  our  bosoms. 
Wt-  iVar  God  ;  we  look  up  with  awe  to  kings  ;  with  affection  to 
parliaments;  with  duty  to  magistrates;  with  reverence  to 
priests ;  and  with  respect  to  nobility.  Why  ?  Because,  when 

10  The  allusion  is  to  King  John  of  Franco,  who  fell  a  captive  into  the  hands 
of  lid  \\ard  Die  Black  Prince  at  the  battle  of  Poitiers,  in  September,  1356.  The 
next  Spring,  Edward  landed,  with  his  royal  captive,  at  Sandwich,  and  proceed- 
ed thence,  by  easy  journeys,  to  London.  I  quote  from  Hume:  "The  prisoner 
was  clad  in  royal  apparel,  and  mounted  on  a  white  steed,  distinguished  by  its 
ize  and  beauty,  and  by  the.  rich  ness  of  its  furniture.  The  conqueror  rode  by 
his  side  in  meaner  attire,  and  carried  by  a  black  palfrey.  In  this  situation, 
more  glorious  than  all  the  insolent  parade  of  a  Roman  triumph,  he  passed 
through  the  streets  of  London,  and  presented  the  King  of  France  to  his  father, 
who  advanced  to  meet  him,  and  received  him  with  the  same  courtesy  as  if  ho 
had  been  a  neighbouring  potentate  that  had  voluntarily  come  to  pay  him  a 
friendly  visit." 


178  BURKE. 

such  ideas  are  brought  before  our  minds,  it  is  natural  to  be  so 
affected ;  because  all  other  feelings  are  false  and  spurious,  and 
tend  to  corrupt  our  minds,  to  vitiate  our  primary  morals,  to 
render  us  unfit  for  rational  liberty ;  and,  by  teaching  us  a  ser- 
vile, licentious,  and  abandoned  insolence,  to  be  our  low  sport 
for  a  few  holidays,  to  make  us  perfectly  fit  for,  and  justly 
deserving  of,  slavery  through  the  whole  course  of  our  lives. 

You  see,  Sir,  that  in  this  enlightened  age  I  am  bold  enough 
to  confess  that  we  are  generally  men  of  untaught  feelings  ;  that, 
instead  of  casting  away  all  our  old  prejudices,  we  cherish  them 
to  a  very  considerable  degree,  and,  to  take  more  shame  to  our- 
selves, we  cherish  them  because  they  are  prejudices  ;  and  the 
longer  they  have  lasted,  and  the  more  generally  they  have  pre- 
vailed, the  more  we  cherish  them.  "NVe  are  afraid  to  put  men 
to  live  and  trade  each  on  his  own  private  stock  of  reason ;  be- 
cause we  suspect  that  this  stock  in  each  man  is  small,  and  that 
the  individuals  would  do  better  to  avail  themselves  of  the  gen- 
eral bank  and  capital  of  nations  and  of  ages.  Many  of  our  men 
of  speculation,  instead  of  exploding  general  prejudices,  employ 
their  sagacity  to  discover  the  latent  wisdom  which  prevails  in 
them.  If  they  find  what  they  seek,  and  they  seldom  fail,  they 
think  it  more  wise  to  continue  the  prejudice,  with  the  reason 
involved,  than  to  cast  away  the  coat  of  prejudice,  and  to  l,>ave 
nothing  but  the  naked  reason  ;  because  prejudice,  with  its  iva- 
son,  has  a  motive  to  give  action  to  that  reason,  and  an  affection 
which  will  give  it  permanence.  Prejudice  is  of  ready  applica- 
tion in  the  emergency ;  it  previously  engages  the  mind  in  a 
steady  course  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  and  does  not  leave  the.  man 
hesitating  in  the  moment  of  decision,  sceptical,  puzzled,  and 
unresolved.  Prejudice  renders  a  man's  virtue  his  habit  ;  and 
not  a  series  of  unconnected  acts.  Through  just  prejudices  his 
duty  becomes  a  part  of  his  nature. 

Your  literary  men,  and  your  politicians,  and  so  do  the  whole 
clan  of  the  enlightened  among  us,  essentially  differ  in  these 
points.  They  have  no  respect  for  the  wisdom  of  others  ;  but 
they  pay  it  off  by  a  very  full  measure  of  confidence  in  their  own. 
With  them  it  is  a  sufficient  motive  to  destroy  an  old  scheme  of 
things,  because  it  is  an  old  one.  As  to  the  new,  they  are  in  no 
sort  of  fear  with  regard  to  the  duration  of  a  building  run  up  in 
haste  ;  because  duration  is  no  object  to  those  who  think  little 
or  nothing  has  been  done  before  their  time,  and  who  place  all 
their  hopes  in  discovery.  They  conceive,  very  systematically, 
that  all  things  which  give  perpetuity  are  mischievous,  and 
therefore  they  are  at  inexpiable  war  with  all  establishments. 
They  think  that  government  may  vary  like  modes  of  dress,  and 
with  as  little  ill  effect ;  that  there  needs  no  principle  of  attach- 


THE   REVOLUTION   IN    FRANCE.  179 

ment,  except  a  sense  of  present  conveniency,  to  any  constitution 
of  the  State.  They  always  speak  as  if  they  were  of  opinion  that 
there  is  a  singular  species  of  compact  between  them  and  their 
magistrates,  which  binds  the  magistrate,  but  which  has  nothing 
reciprocal  in  it ;  but  that  the  majesty  of  the  people  has  a  right 
to  dissolve  it  without  any  reason,  but  its  will.  Their  attach- 
ment to  their  country  itself  is  only  so  far  as  it  agrees  with  some 
of  their  fleeting  projects  ;  it  begins  and  ends  with  that  scheme 
of  polity  which  falls  in  with  their  momentary  opinion. 

These  doctrines,  or  rather  sentiments,  seem  prevalent  with 
your  new  statesmen.  But  they  are  wholly  different  from  those 
on  which  we  have  always  acted  in  this  country. 

I  hear  it  is  sometimes  given  out  in  France,  that  what  is  doing 
among  you  is  after  the  example  of  England.  I  beg  leave  to 
aflirm  that  scarcely  any  thing  done  with  you  has  originated  from 
the  practice  or  the  prevalent  opinions  of  this  people,  either  in 
the  act  or  in  the  spirit  of  the  proceeding.  Let  me  add,  that  we 
are  as  unwilling  to  learn  these  lessons  from  France,  as  we  arc 
sure  that  we  never  taught  them  to  that  nation.  The  cabals 
here,  who  take  a  sort  of  share  in  your  transactions,  as  yet  con- 
sist of  but  a  handful  of  people.  If  unfortunately  by  their 
intrigues,  their  sermons,  their  publications,  and  by  a  confidence 
derived  from  an  expe<led  union  with  the  counsels  and  forces  of 
the  French  nation,  they  should  draw  considerable  numbers  into 
their  faction,  and  in  consequence  should  seriously  attempt  any 
thing  here  in  imitation  of  what  has  been  done  with  you,  the 
event,  I  dare  venture  to  prophesy,  will  be,  that,  with  some 
trouble  to  their  country,  they  will  soon  accomplish  their  own 
destruction.  This  people  refused  to  change  their  law  in  remote 
from  respect  to  the  infallibility  of  popes  ;  and  they  will  not 
now  alter  it  from  a  pious  implicit  faith  in  the  dogmatism  of 
philosophers  ;  though  the  former  was  armed  with  the  anathema 
and  crusade,  and  though  the  latter  should  act  with  the  libel  and 
1  IK-  lamp-iron. 

Formerly  your  affairs  were  your  own  -concern  only.  We  felt 
for  them  as  men ;  but  we  kept  aloof  from  them,  because  we 
\\rre  not  citi/ens  of  France.  But  when  we  see  the  model  held 
up  to  ourselves,  we  must  feel  as  Englishmen,  and,  feeling,  we 
must  provide  as  Englishmen.  Your  affairs,  in  spite  of  us,  are 
made  a  part  of  our  interest ;  so  far  at  least  as  to  keep  at  a  dis- 
tance, your  panacea,  or  your  plague.  If  it  be  a  panacea,  we  do 
not  want  it.  \\'u  know  the  consequences  of  unnecessary  physic. 
If  it  be  a  plague,  it  is  such  a  plague  that  the  precautions  of  the 
•  veiv  quarantine  ought  to  be  established  against  it. 

I  hear  on  all  hands  that  a  cabal,  calling  itself  philosophic,  re- 
ceives the  glory  of  many  of  the  late  proceedings  ;  and  that  their 


180  BURKE. 

opinions  and  systems  arc  the  true  actuating  spirit  of  the  whole 
of  them.  I  have  heard  of  no  party  in  England,  literary  or  polit- 
ical, at  any  time,  known  by  such  a  description.  It  is  not  with 
you  composed  of  those  men,  is  it,  whom  the  vulgar,  in  their 
blunt,  homely  stylo,  commonly  call  atheists  and  infidels?  If  'it 
be,  I  admit  that  we  too  have  had  writers  of  that  description, 
who  made  some  noise  in  their  day.  At  present  they  repose  in 
lasting  oblivion.  Who,  born  within  the  last  forty  years,  has 
read  one  word  of  Collins,  and  Toland,  and  Tindal,  and  Chubb, 
and  Morgan,  and  that  whole  race  who  called  themselves  Free- 
thinkers? Who  now  reads  Bolingbroke?  Who  ever  read  him 
through  ?  Ask  the  booksellers  of  London  what  is  become  of 
all  these  lights  of  the  world.  In  as  few  years  their  few  successors 
will  go  to  the  family  vault  of  "all  the  Capulets."  But  what- 
ever they  were,  or  are,  with  us  they  were  and  are  wholly 
unconnected  individuals.  With  us  they  kept  the  common  na- 
ture of  their  kind,  and  were  not  gregarious.  They  never  acted 
in  corps,  or  were  known  as  a  faction  in  the  State,  nor  presumed 
to  influence,  in  that  name  or  character,  or  for  the  purposes  of 
such  a  faction,  any  of  our  public  concerns.  Whether  they 
ought  so  to  exist,  and  so  be  permitted  to  act,  is  another  ques- 
tion. As  such  cabals  have  not  existed  in  England,  so  neither 
has  the  spirit  of  them  had  any  influence  in  establishing  the  origi- 
nal frame  of  our  Constitution,  or  in  any  one  of  the  several  repa- 
rations and  improvements  it  has  undergone.  The  whole  has 
been  done  under  the  auspices,  and  is  confirmed  by  the  sanctions, 
of  religion  and  piety.  The  whole  has  emanated  from  the  sim- 
plicity of  our  national  character,  and  from  a  sort  of  native 
plainness  and  directness  of  understanding,  which  for  a  long 
time  characterized  those  men  who  have  successively  obtained 
authority  amongst  us.  This  disposition  still  remains  ;  at  least 
in  the  great  body  of  the  people. 

We  know,  and  what  is  better,  we  feel  inwardly,  that  religion 
is  the  basis  of  civil  society,  and  the  source  of  all  good  and  of  all 
comfort.  In  England  we  are  so  convinced  of  this,  that  there  is 
no  rust  of  superstition,  with  which  the  accumulated  absurdity 
of  the  human  mind  might  have  crusted  it  over  in  the  cour>c  of 
ages,  that  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  of  the  people  of  England 
would  not  prefer  to  impiety.  We  shall  never  be  such  fools  as 
to  call  in  an  enemy  to  the  substance  of  any  system  to  remove 
its  corruptions,  to  supply  its  defects,  or  to  perfect  its  construc- 
tion. If  our  religious  tenets  should  ever  want  a  further  elucida- 
tion, we  shall  not  call  on  atheism  to  explain  them.  We  shall 
not  light  up  our  temple  from  that  unhallowed  fire.  It  will  be 
illuminated  with  other  lights.  It  will  be  perfumed  with  other 
incense  than  the  infectious  stuff  which  is  imported  by  the 


THE   REVOLUTION   IX   FRANCE.  .181 

smugglers  of  adulterated  metaphysics.  If  our  ecclesiastical  es- 
tablishment should  want  a  revision,  it  is  not  avarice  or  rapacity, 
public  or  private,  that  we  shall  employ  for  the  audit,  or  receipt, 
or  application  of  its  consecrated  revenue.  Violently  condem- 
ning neither  the  Greek  nor  the  Armenian,  nor,  since  heats  are 
subsided,  the  Roman  system  of  religion,  we  prefer  the  Protes- 
tant ;  not  because  we  think  it  has  less  of  the  Christian  religion 
in  it,  but  because,  in  our  judgment,  it  has  more.  We  are  Prot- 
estants, not  from  indifference,  but  from  zeal. 

We  know,  and  it  is  our  pride  to  know,  that  man  is  by  his  con- 
stitution a  religious  animal ;  that  atheism  is  against,  not  only 
our  reason,  but  our  instincts ;  and  that  it  cannot  prevail  long. 
But  if,  in  the  moment  of  riot,  and  in  a  drunken  delirium  from 
the  hot  spirit  drawn  out  of  the  alembic  of  Hell,  which  in  France 
is  now  so  furiously  boiling,  we  should  uncover  our  nakedness, 
by  throwing  off  that  Christian  religion  which  has  hitherto  been 
our  boast  and  comfort,  and  one  great  source  of  civilization 
amongst  us,  and  amongst  many  other  nations,  we  are  apprehen- 
sive (being  well  aware  that  the  mind  will  not  endure  a  void) 
that  some  uncouth,  pernicious,  and  degrading  superstition 
might  take  the;  place  of  it. 

F<>r  that  reason,  before  we  take  from  our  establishment  the 
natural,  human  means  of  estimation,  and  give  it  up  to  con- 
tempt, as  you  have  done,  and  in  doing  it  have  incurred  the  pen- 
alties you  well  deserve  to  suftVr,  we  desire  that  some  other  may 
be  presented  to  us  in  the  place  of  it.  We  shall  then  form  our 
judgment. 

On  these  ideas,  instead  of  quarrelling  with  establishments, 
as  some  do,  who  have  made  a  philosophy  and  a  religion  of  their 
hostility  to  such  institutions,  we  cleave  closely  to  them.  Our 
Church  establishment  is  the  first  of  our  prejudices,  not  a  preju- 
dice destitute  of  reason,  but  involving  in  it  profound  and  exten- 
sive wisdom.  It  is  first,  and  last,  and  midst  in  our  minds.  For, 
taking  ground  on  that  religious  system  of  which  we  are  now  in 
-ion,  we  continue  to  act  on  the  early-received  and 
uniformly-continued  sense  of  mankind.  That  sense  not  only, 
like-  a  wise  architect,  hath  built  up  the  august  fabric  of  States, 
but  like  a  provident  proprietor,  to  preserve  the  structure  from 
profanation  and  ruin,  as  a  sacred  temple  purged  from  all  the 
impurities  of  fraud  and  violence  and  injustice  and  tyranny, 
huth  solemnly  and  for  ever  consecrated  the  commonwealth,  and 
all  that  olliciate  in  it.  This  consecration  is  made,  that  all  who 
administer  in  the  government  of  men,  in  which  they  stand  in 
the  person  of  (iod  himself,  should  have  high  and  worthy  no- 
tion-, of  their  function  and  destination  ;  that  their  hope  should 
be  full  of  immortality  ;  that  they  should  not  look  to  the  paltry 


182  15URKE. 

pelf  of  the  moment,  nor  to  the  temporary  and  transient  praise 
of  the  vulgar,  but  to  a  solid,  permanent  existence,  in  the  perma- 
nent part  of  their  nature,  and  to  a  permanent  fame  and  glory, 
in  the  example  they  leave  as  a  rich  inheritance  to  the  world. 

Such  sublime  principles  ought  to  be  infused  into  persons  of 
exalted  situations  ;  and  religious  establishments  provided,  that 
may  continually  revive  and  enforce  them.  Every  sort  of  moral, 
every  sort  of  civil,  every  sort  of  politic  institution,  aiding  the 
rational  and  natural  ties  that  connect  the  human  understanding 
and  affections  to  the  Divine,  are  not  more  than  is  necessary,  in 
order  to  build  up  that  wonderful  structure,  Man;  whose  prerog- 
ative it  is,  to  be  in  a  great  degree  a  creature  of  his  own  mak- 
ing ;  and  who,  when  made  as  he  ought  to  be  made,  is  destined 
to  hold  no  trivial  place  in  the  creation.  But  whenever  man  is 
put  over  men,  as  the  better  nature  ought  ever  to  preside,  in  that 
case  more  particularly  he  should  as  nearly  as  possible  be  ap- 
proximated to  his  perfection. 

The  consecration  of  the  State,  by  a  state  religious  establish- 
ment, is  necessary  also  to  operate  with  a  wholesome  awe  upon 
free  citizens ;  because,  in  order  to  secure  their  freedom,  they 
must  enjoy  some  determinate  portion  of  power.  To  them 
therefore  a  religion  connected  with  the  State,  and  with  their 
duty  towards  it,  becomes  even  more  necessary  than  in  such  so- 
cieties where  the  people,  by  the  terms  of  their  subjection,  arc 
confined  to  private  sentiments,  and  the  management  of  their 
own  family  concerns.  All  persons  possessing  any  portion  of 
power  ought  to  be  strongly  and  awfully  impressed  with  an  idea 
that  they  act  in  trust;  and  that  they  are  to  account  for  their 
conduct  in  that  trust  to  the  one  great  Master,  Author,  and 
Founder  of  society. 

This  principle  ought  even  to  be  more  strongly  impressed 
upon  the  minds  of  those  who  compose  the  collective  sover- 
eignty than  upon  those  of  single  princes.  Without  instruments, 
these  princes  can  do  nothing.  Whoever  uses  instruments,  in 
finding  helps,  finds  also  impediments.  Their  power  is  therefore 
by  no  means  complete  ;  nor  are  they  safe  in  extreme  abuse. 
Such  persons,  however  elevated  by  flattery,  arrogance,  and  self- 
opinion,  must  be  sensible  that,  whether  covered  or  not  by  p,»i- 
tive  law,  in  some  way  or  other  they  are  accountable  even  here 
for  the  abuse  of  their  trust.  If  they  are  not  cut  off  by  a  rebel- 
lion of  their  people,  they  may  be  strangled  by  the  very  janissa- 
ries kept  for  their  security  against  all  other  rebellion.  Thus 
we  have  seen  the  King  of  France  sold  by  his  soldiers  for  an  in- 
crease of  pay.  But  where  popular  authority  is  absolute  and 
unrestrained,  the  people  have  an  infinitely  greater,  because  a 
far  better-founded,  confidence  in  their  own  power.  They  are 


THE   REVOLUTION"  IX  FRANCE.  183 

themselves,  in  a  great  measure,  their  own  instruments.  They 
are  nearer  to  their  objects.  Besides,  they  are  less  under  re- 
sponsibility to  one  of  the  greatest  controlling  powers  on  Earth, 
the  sense  of  fame  and  estimation.  The  share  of  infamy  that  is 
likely  to  fall  to  the  lot  of  each  individual  in  public  acts  is  small 
indeed ;  the  operation  of  opinion  being  in  the  inverse  ratio  to 
the  number  of  those  who  abuse  power.  Their  own  approbation 
of  their  own  acts  has  to  them  the  appearance  of  a  public  judg- 
ment in  their  favour.  A  perfect  democracy  is  therefore  the 
most  shameless  thing  in  the  world.  As  it  is  the  most  shainc- 
lc>>,  it  is  also  the  most  fearless.  No  man^tppreliends  in  his 
person  that  he  can  be  made  subject  to  punishment.  Certainly 
the  people  at  large  never  ought ;  for,  as  all  punishments  are  for 
example  towards  the  conservation  of  the  people  at  large,  the 
people  at  large  can  never  become  the  subject  of  punishment  by 
any  human  hand.  It  is  therefore  of  infinite  importance  that 
they  should  not  be  suffered  to  imagine  that  their  will,  any  more 
than  that  of  kings,  is  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong.  They 
ought  to  bo  persuaded  that  they  are  full  as  little  entitled,  and 
far  less  qualified,  with  safety  to  themselves,  to  use  any  arbitrary 
power  whatsoever ;  that  therefore  they  are  not,  under  a  false 
show  of  liberty,  but,  in  truth,  by  exercising  an  unnatural,  in- 
verted domination,  tyrannically  to  exact  from  those  who  offici- 
ate in  the  State,  not  an  entire  devotion  to  their  interest,  which 
is  their  right,  but  an  abject  submission  to  their  occasional  Avill ; 
extinguishing  thereby,  in  all  those  who  serve  them,  all  moral 
principle,  all  sense  of  dignity,  all  use  of  judgment,  and  all  con- 
sistency of  character ;  whilst  by  the  very  same  process  they 
give  themselves  up  a  proper,  a  suitable,  but  a  most  contempti- 
ble prey  to  the  servile  ambition  of  popular  sycophants  or 
courtly  flatterers. 

When  the  people  have  emptied  themselves  of  all  the  lust  of 
selfish  will,  which  without  religion  it  is  utterly  impossible  they 
hould;  when  they  are  conscious  that  they  exercise,  and 
exercise  perhaps  in  a  higher  link  of  the  order  of  delegation,  the 
power,  which  to  be  legitimate  must  be  according  to  that  eternal, 
immutable  law,  in  which  will  and  reason  are  the  same, — they 
M  ill  be  more  careful  how  they  place  power  in  base  and  incapa- 
ble hands.  In  their  nomination  to  office,  they  will  not  appoint 
to  the  exercise  of  authority,  as  to  a  pitiful  job,  but  as  to  a  holy 
function  ;  not  according  to  their  sordid,  selfish  interest,  nor  to 
their  wanton  caprice,  nor  to  their  arbitrary  will ;  but  they  will 
confer  that  power  (which  any  man  may  well  tremble  to  give 
<-r  t.)  receive)  on  those  only  in  whom  they  may  discern  that 
predominant  proportion  of  active  virtue  and  wisdom,  taken 
together  and  fitted  to  the  charge,  such  as,  in  the  great  and  in- 


184  BURKE. 

evitable  mixed  mass  of  human  imperfections  and  infirmities,  is 
to  be  found. 

When  they  are  habitually  convinced  that  no  evil  can  be  ac- 
ceptable, either  in  the  act  or  the  permission,  to  Him  whose  es- 
sence is  good,  they  will  be  better  able  to  extirpate  out  of  the 
minds  of  all  magistrates,  civil,  ecclesiastical,  or  military,  any 
thing  that  bears  the  least  resemblance  to  a  proud  and  lawless 
domination. 

But  one  of  the  first  and  most  leading  principles  on  which  the 
commonwealth  and  the  laws  are  consecrated  is,  lest  the  tempo- 
rary possessors  ai^d  life-renters  in  it,  unmindful  of  what  they 
have  received  from  their  ancestors,  or  of  what  is  due  to  their 
posterity,  should  act  as  if  they  won:  the  entire  masters;  that  they 
should  not  think  it  among  their  rights  to  cut  off  the  entail,  or 
commit  waste  on  the  inheritance,  by  destroying  at  their  pleas- 
ure the  whole  original  fabric  of  their  society;  hazarding  to 
leave  to  those  who  come  after  them  a  ruin  instead  of  an  habita- 
tion ;  and  teaching  these  successors  as  little  to  respeet  their 
contrivances,  as  they  had  themselves  respected  the  institutions 
of  their  forefathers.  By  this  unprincipled  facility  of  changing 
the  State-as  often,  and  as  much,  and  in  as  many  ways,  as  there 
are  floating  fancies  or  fashions,  the  whole  chain  and  continuity 
of  the  commonwealth  would  be  broken.  No  one  generation 
could  link  with  another.  Men  would  become  little  better  than 
the  Hies  of  a  Summer. 

And,  first  of  all,  the  science  of  jurisprudence,  the  pride  of 
the  human  intellect, —  which,  with  all  its  defects,  redundancies, 
and  errors,  is  the  collected  reason  of  ages,  combining  the 
principles  of  original  justice  with  the  infinite  variety  of  human 
concerns, — as  a  heap  of  old  exploded  errors,  would  be  no  longer 
studied.  Personal  self-sufficiency  and  arrogance  (the  certain 
attendants  upon  all  those  who  have  never  experienced  a  wis- 
dom greater  than  their  own)  would  usurp  the  tribunal.  Of 
course  no  certain  laws,  establishing  invariable  grounds  of  hope" 
and  fear,  would  keep  the  actions  of  men  in  a  certain  course,  in- 
direct them  to  a  certain  end.  Nothing  stable  in  the  modes  of 
holding  property,  or  exercising  function,  could  form  a  solid 
ground  on  which  any  parent  could  speculate  in  the  education  of 
his  offspring,  or  in  a  choice  for  their  future  establishment  in 
the  world.  No  principles  would  be  early  worked  into  the 
habits.  As  soon  as  the  most  able  instructor  had  completed  his 
laborious  course  of  institution,  instead  of  sending  forth  his 
pupil  accomplished  in  a  virtuous  discipline,  fitted  to  procure 
him  attention  and  respect  in  his  place  in  society,  he  would  find 
every  thing  altered ;  and  that  he  had  turned  out  a  poor  crea- 
ture to  the  contempt  and  derision  of  the  world,  ignorant  of  the 


THE    REVOLUTION"   IX   FRANCE.  185 

true  grounds  of  estimation.  Who  would  insure  a  tender  and 
delicate  sense  of  honour  to  beat  almost  with  the  first  pulses  of 
ihe  heart,  when  no  man  could  know  what  would  be  the  test  of 
honour  in  a  nation,  continually  varying  the  standard  of  its 
coin?  No  part  of  life  would  retain  its  acquisitions.  Barbarism 
with  regard  to  science  and  literature,  unskilfulness  with  regard 
to  arts  and  manufactures,  would  infallibly  succeed  to  the  want 
of  a  steady  education  and  settled  principle ;  and  thus  the 
commonwealth  itself  would,  in  a  few  generations,  crumble 
away,  be  disconnected  into  the  dust  and  powder  of  individu- 
ality, and  at  length  dispersed  to  all  the  winds  of  heaven. 

To  avoid,  therefore,  the  evils  of  inconstancy  and  versatility, 
ten  thousand  times  worse  than  those  of  obstinacy  and  the  blind- 
est prejudice,  we  have  consecrated  the  State,  that  no  man  should 
approach  to  look  into  its  defects  or  corruptions  but  with  due 
caution;  that  he  should  never  dream  of  beginning  its  reforma- 
tion by  its  subversion  ;  that  he  should  approach  to  the  faults  of 
the  State  as  to  the  wounds  of  a  father,  with  pious  awe  and 
tivmbling  solicitude.  I5y  this  wise  prejudice  we  are  taught  to 
look  with  horror  on  the  children  of  their  country,  who  are 
prompt  rashly  to  hack  that  aged  parent  in  pieces,  and  put  him 
into  the  kettle  of  magicians,  in  hopes  that  by  their  poisonous 
weeds  and  wild  incantations  they  may  regenerate  the  paternal 
constitution,  and  renovate  t  heir  father's  life-. 

Society  is  indeed  a  contract.  Subordinate  contracts  for 
objects  of  mere  occasional  interest  may  be  dissolved  at  pleas- 
ure ;  but.  the  State  ought  not  to  be  considered  as  nothing  better 
than  a  partnership  agreement  in  a  trade  of  pepper  and  coffee, 
calico  or  tobacco,  or  some  other  such  low  concern,  to  be  taken 
up  for  a  little  temporary  interest,  and  to  be  dissolved  by  the 
fancy  of  the  parties.  It  is  to  be  looked  on  with  other  rever- 
ence ;  because  it  is  not  a  partnership  in  things  subservient  only 
to  the  gross  animal  existence  of  a  temporary  and  perishable 
nature.  It  is  a  partnership  in  all  science  ;  a  partnership  in  all 
art ;  a  partnership  in  every  virtue,  and  in  all  perfection.  As 
the  ends  of  such  a  partnership  cannot  be  obtained  in  many 
generations,  it  becomes  a  partnership  not  only  between  those 
who  are  living,  but  between  those  who  are  living,  those  who 
are  dead,  and  those  who  are  to  be  born.  Each  contract  of  each 
M-nlar  State  is  but  a  clause  in  the  great  primeval  contract  of 
;ial  society,  linking  the  lower  with  the  higher  natures, 
connecting  tin-  visible  and  invisible,  world,  according  to  a  fixed 
compact  sanctioned  by  the  inviolable  oath  which  holds  all 
physical  and  all  moral  natures  each  in  their  appointed  place. 
This  law  is  not  subject  to  the  will  of  those,  who  by  an  obliga- 
tion above  them,  and  infinitely  superior,  are  bound  to  submit 


186  BURKE. 

their  will  to  that  law.  The  municipal  corporations  of  that 
universal  kingdom  are  not  morally  at  liberty  at  their  pleasure, 
and  on  their  speculations  of  a  contingent  improvement,  wholly 
to  separate  and  tear  asunder  the  bands  of  their  subordinate 
community,  and  to  dissolve  it  into  an  unsocial,  uncivil,  uncon- 
nected chaos  of  elementary  principles.  It  is  the  first  and 
supreme  necessity  only,  a  necessity  that  is  not  chosen,  but 
chooses,  a  necessity  paramount  to  deliberation,  that  admits  no 
discussion,  and  demands  no  evidence,  which  alone  can  justify  a 
resort  to  anarchy.  This  necessity  itself  is  no  exception  to 
the  rule ;  because  this  necessity  itself  is  a  part  too  of  that 
moral  and  physical  disposition  of  things  to  which  man  must  be 
obedient  by  consent  or  force  :  but  if  that  which  is  only  submis- 
sion to  necessity  should  be  made  the  object  of  choice,  the  law 
is  broken,  Nature  is  disobeyed,  and  the  rebellious  are  outlawed, 
cast  forth,  and  exiled,  from  this  world  of  reason  and  order,  and 
peace  and  virtue,  ami  fruitful  penitence,  into  the  antagonist 
world  of  madness,  discord,  vice,  confusion,  and  unavailing 
sorrow. 

These,  my  dear  Sir,  arc,  were,  and,  I  think,  long  will  be,  the 
sentiments  of  not  the  least  learned  and  reflecting  part  of  this 
kingdom.  They  who  are  included  in  this  description  form  their 
opinions  on  such  grounds  as  such  persons  ought  to  form  them. 
The  less  inquiring  receive  them  from  an  authority,  which  those 
whom  Providence  dooms  to  live  on  trust  need  not  be  ashamed 
to  rely  on.  These  two  sorts  of  men  move  in  the  same  direction, 
though  in  a  different  place.  They  both  move  with  the  order  of 
the  universe.  They  all  know  or  feel  this  great  ancient  truth: 
"  Quod  illi  principi  et  prsepotenti  Deo  qui  omncm  hunc  mundum 
regit,  nihil  eorum  qure  quidem  fiant  in  terris  acceptius  quam 
concilia  et  cactus  hominum  jure  sociati  qua3  civitates  appellan- 
tur."11  They  take  this  tenet  of  the  head  and  heart,  not  from 
the  great  name  which  it  immediately  bears,  nor  from  the  greater 
from  whence  it  is  derived  ;  but  from  that  which  alone  can  give 
true  weight  and  sanction  to  any  learned  opinion,  the  common 
nature  and  common  relation  of  men.  They  think  themselves 
bound,  not  only  as  individuals  in  the  sanctuary  of  the  heart,  or 
as  congregated  in  that  personal  capacity,  to  renew  the  memory 
of  their  high  origin  and  cast ;  but  also  in  their  corporate  charac- 
ter to  perform  their  national  homage  to  the  Institutor,  and 
Author,  and  Protector  of  civil  society  ;  without  which  civil  so- 
ciety man  could  not  by  any  possibility  arrive  at  the  perfection 

11  "To  the  sovereign  nnd  nil-powerful  Deity  who  governs  the  Universe, 
nothing  that  happens  on  the  Earth  is  more  acceptable  than  those  unions  and 
combinations  of  men  held  together  by  law  and  justice  which  are  called  States." 
The  passage  is  quoted  from  Cicero,  who,  I  think,  derived  it  from  Tlato. 


THE   REVOLUTION   IN"   FRANCE.  187 

of  which  his  nature  is  capable,  nor  even  make  a  remote  and 
faint  approach  to  it.  They  conceive  that  He  who  gave  our  na- 
ture to  be  perfected  by  our  virtue,  willed  also  the  necessary 
means  of  its  perfection.  He  willed  therefore  the  State ;  He 
willed  its  connection  with  the  Source  and  original  Archetype  of 
all  perfection.  They  who  are  convinced  of  this  His  will,  which 
is  the  law  of  laws,  and  the  sovereign  of  sovereigns,  cannot  think 
it  reprehensible  that  this  our  corporate  fealty  and  homage,  that 
this  our  recognition  of  a  signiory  paramount,  I  had  almost  said 
this  oblation  of  the  State  itself,  as  a  worthy  offering  on  the  high 
altar  of  universal  praise,  should  be  performed,  as  all  public  sol- 
emn acts  are  performed,  in  buildings,  in  music,  in  decoration,  in 
speech,  in  the  dignity  of  persons,  according  to  the  customs  of 
mankind,  taught  by  their  nature  ;  that  is,  with  modest  splen- 
dour and  unassuming  state,  with  mild  majesty  and  sober  pomp. 
For  those  purposes  they  think  some  part  of  the  wealth  of  the 
country  is  as  usefully  employed  as  it  can  be  in  fomenting  the 
luxury  of  individuals.  It  is  the  public  ornament.  It  is  the 
public  consolation.  It  nourishes  the  public  hope.  The  poorest 
man  finds  his  own  importance  and  dignity  in  it,  whilst  the 
wealth  and  pride  of  individuals  at  every  moment  makes  the 
man  of  humble  rank  and  fortune  sensible  of  his  inferiority,  and 
degrades  and  viliiies  his  condition.  It  is  for  the  man  in  humble 
life,  and  to  raise  his  nature,  and  to  put  him  in  mind  of  a  state 
in  which  the  privileges  of  opulence  will  cease,  when  he  will  be 
equal  by  nature,  and  may  be  more  than  equal  by  virtue,  that 
this  portion  of  the  general  wealth  of  his  country  is  employed 
and  sanctified. 

So  tenacious  are  we  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  modes  and  fash- 
ions of  institution,  that  very  little  alteration  has  been  made  in 
them  since  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century;  adhering  in 
this  particular,  as  in  all  things  else,  to  our  old  settled  maxim, 
never  <'ntiivly  nor  at  once  to  depart  from  antiquity.  We  found 
these  old  institutions,  on  the  whole,  favourable  to  morality  and 
discipline  ;  and  we  thought  they  were  susceptible  of  amend- 
ment, without  altering  the  ground.  We  thought  that  they 
wrn«  capable  of  receiving  and  meliorating,  and  above  all  of 
preserving,  the  accessions  of  science  and  literature,  as  the  order 
of  Providence  should  successively  produce  them.  And,  after 
all,  with  this  Gothic  and  monkish  education  (for .such  it  is  in  the 
groundwork)  we  may  put  in  our  claim  to  as  ample  and  as  early 
a  share  in  all  the  improvements  in  science,  in  arts,  and  in  litera- 
ture, which  have  illuminated  and  adorned  the  modern  world, 
as  any  other  nation  in  Europe:  we  think  one  main  cause  of  this 
improvement  was  our  not  despising  the  patrimony  of  knowledge 
which  was  left  us  by  our  forefathers. 


188  BURKE. 

The  men  of  England,  the  men,  I  mean,  of  light  and  leading 
in  England,  whose  wisdom  (if  they  have  any)  is  open  and  direct, 
would  be  ashamed,  as  of  a  silly,  deceitful  trick,  to  profess  any 
religion  in  name,  which,  by  their  proceedings,  they  appear  to 
conteYnn.  If  by  their  conduct  (the  only  language  that  rarely 
lies)  they  seemed  to  regard  the  great  ruling  principle  of  the 
moral  and  the  natural  world  as  a  mere  invention  to  keep  the 
vulgar  in  obedience,  they  apprehend  that  by  such  a  conduct 
they  would  defeat  the  politic  purpose  they  have  in  view.  They 
would  find  it  difficult  to  make  others  believe  in  a  system  to 
which  they  manifestly  give  no  credit  themselves.  The  Christian 
statesmen  of  this  land  would  indeed  first  provide  for  the  multi- 
tude; because  it  is  the  multitude;  and  is  therefore,  as  such,  the 
first  object  in  the  ecclesiastical  institution,  and  in  all  institu- 
tions. They  have  been  taught  that  the  circumstance  of  the 
Gospel's  being  preached  to  the  poor  was  one  of  the  great  tests 
of  its  true  mission.  They  think,  therefore,  that  those  do  not 
believe  it  who  do  not  take  care  it  should  be  preached  to  the 
poor.  But,  as  they  know  that  charity  is  not  confined  to  any  one 
description,  but  ought  to  apply  itself  to  all  men  who  have  wants, 
they  are  not  deprived  of  a  due  and  anxious  sensation  of  pity  to 
the  distresses  of  the  miserable  great.  They  are  not  repelled 
through  a  fastidious  delicacy,  at  the  stench  of  their  arrogance 
and  presumption,  from  a  medicinal  attention  to  their  mental 
blotches  and  running  sores.  They  are  sensible  that  religious 
instruction  is  of  more  consequence  to  them  than  to  any  others  ; 
from  the  greatness  of  the  temptations  to  which  they  are  ex- 
posed ;  from  the  important  consequences  that  attend  their 
faults  ;  from  the  contagion  of  their  ill  example ;  from  the 
necessity  of  bowing  down  the  stubborn  neck  of  their  pride  and 
ambition  to  the  yoke  of  moderation  and  virtue  ;  from  a  consid- 
eration of  the  fat  stupidity  and  gross  ignorance  concerning 
what  imports  men  most  to  know,  which  prevail  at  Courts,  and 
at  the  head  of  armies,  and  in  senates,  as  much  as  at  the  loom 
and  in  the  field. 

The  English  people  are  satisfied  that  to  the  great  the  conso- 
lations of  religion  are  as  necessary  as  its  instructions.  They  too 
are  among  the  unhappy.  They  feel  personal  pain  and  domestic 
sorrow.  In  these  they  have  no  privilege,  but  are  subject  to  pay 
their  full  contingent  to  the  contributions  levied  on  mortality. 
They  want  this  sovereign  balm  under  their  gnawing  cares  and 
anxieties,  which,  being  less  conversant  about  the  limited  wants 
of  animal  life,  range  without  limit,  and  are  diversified  by  infi- 
nite combinations,  in  the  wild  and  unbounded  regions  of  imagi- 
nation. Some  charitable  dole  is  wanting  to  these,  our  often 
very  unhappy  brethren,  to  fill  the  gloomy  void  that  reigns  in 


THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE.          189 

minds  which  have  nothing  on  Earth  to  hope  or  fear  ;  something 
to  relieve  in  the  killing  languor  and  over-laboured  lassitude  of 
those  who  have  nothing  to  do  ;  something  to  excite  an  appetite 
to  existence  in  the  palled  satiety  which  attends  on  all  pleasures 
which  may  be  bought,  where  nature  is  not  left  to  her  own  pro- 
cess, where  even  desire  is  anticipated,  and  therefore  fruition 
defeated,  by  meditated  schemes  and  contrivances  of  delight ; 
and  no  interval,  no  obstacle,  is  interposed  between  the  wish 
and  the  accomplishment. 

The  people  of  England  know  how  little  influence  the  teachers 
of  religion  are  likely  to  have  with  the  wealthy  and  powerful  of 
long  standing,  and  how  much  less  with  the  newly  fortunate,  if 
they  appear  in  a  manner  no  way  assorted  to  those  with  whom 
they  must  associate,  and  over  whom  they  must  even  exercise, 
in  some  cases,  something  like  an  authority.  What  must  they 
think  of  that  body  of  teachers,  if  they  see  it  in  no  part  above 
the  establishment  of  their  domestic  servants?  If  the  poverty 
were  voluntary,  there  might  be  some  difference.  Strong  in- 
stances of  self-denial  operate  powerfully  on  our  minds  ;  and  a 
man  who  has  no  wants  lias  obtained  great  freedom,  and  firm- 
ness, and  even  dignity.  But  as  the  mass  of  any  description  of 
men  are  but  men,  and  their  poverty  cannot  be  voluntary,  that 
disrespect  which  attends  upon  all  lay  poverty  will  not  depart 
from  the  ecclesiastical.  Our  provident  Constitution  has  there- 
fore taken  care  that  those  who  are  to  instruct  presumptuous 
ignorance,  those  who  are  to  be  censors  over  insolent  vice,  should 
neither  incur  their  contempt,  nor  live  upon  their  alms  ;  nor  will 
it  tempt  the  rich  to  a  neglect  of  the  true  medicine  of  their 
minds.  For  these  ivasons,  whilst  we  provide  first  for  the  poor, 
and  with  a  parental  solicitude,  we  have  not  relegated  religion 
(like  something  we  were  ashamed  to  show)  to  obscure  munici- 
palities or  rustic  villages.  No!  we  will  have  her  to  exalt  her 
mitred  front  in  Courts  and  Parliaments.  We  will  have  her 
mixed  throughout  the  whole  mass  of  life,  and  blended  with  all 
the  classes  of  society.  The  people  of  England  will  show,  to  the 
haughty  potentates  of  the  world,  and  to  their  talking  sophisters, 
that  a  free,  a  generous,  an  informed  nation  honours  the  high 
magistrates  of  its  Church  ;  that  it  will  not  suffer  the  insolence 
of  wealth  and  titles,  or  any  other  species  of  proud  pretension, 
to  look  down  with  scorn  upon  what  they  look  up  to  with  rever- 
ence ;  nor  presume  to  trample  on  that  acquired  personal  nobil- 
ity which  they  intend  always  to  be,  and  which  often  is,  the 
fruit,  not  the  reward,  (for  what  can  be  the  reward?)  of  learning, 
piety,  and  virtue. 

Jn  England  most  of  us  conceive  that  it  is  envy  and  malignity 
towards  those  who  are  often  the  beginners  of  their  own  fortune, 


]  90  BURKE. 

and  not  a  love  of  the  self-denial  and  mortification  of  the  ancient 
Church,  that  makes  some  look  askance  at  the  distinctions  and 
honours  and  revenues  which,  taken  from  no  person,  are  set 
apart  for  virtue.  The  ears  of  the  people  of  England  are  dis- 
tinguishing. They  hear  these  men  speak  broad.  Their  tongue 
betrays  them.  Their  language  is  in  the  patois  of  fraud ;  in  the 
cant  and  the  gibberish  of  hypocrisy.  The  people  of  England 
must  think  so,  when  these  praters  affect  to  carry  back  the 
Clergy  to  that  primitive,  evangelic  poverty  which,  in  the  spirit^ 
ought  always  to  exist  in  them,  (and  in  us  too,  however  we  may 
like  it,)  but  in  the  thing  must  be  varied,  when  the  relation  of 
that  body  to  the  State  is  altered  ;  when  manners,  when  modes 
of  life,  when  indeed  the  whole  order  of  human  affairs  has  un- 
dergone a  total  revolution.  We  shall  believe  those  reformers 
then  to  be  honest  enthusiasts,  not,  as  now  we  think  them,  cheats 
and  deceivers,  when  we  see  them  throwing  their  goods  into 
common,  and  submitting  their  own  persons  to  the  austere  dis- 
cipline of  the  early  Church.1 


LIBERTY  IN  THE  ABSTRACT. 

I  FLATTER  myself  that  I  love  a  manly,  moral,  regulated  lib- 
erty as  well  as  any  gentleman  of  that  Society,  be  he  who  he 
will ;  and  perhaps  I  have  given  as  good  proofs  of  my  attachment 
to  that  cause,  in  the  whole  course  of  my  public  conduct.  I 
think  I  envy  liberty  as  little  as  they  do  to  any  other  nation. 
But  I  cannot  stand  forward,  and  give  praise  or  blame  to  any 
thing  which  relates  to  human  actions  and  human  concerns,  on  a 
simple  view  of  the  object,  as  it  stands  stripped  of  every  relation, 
in  all  the  nakedness  and  solitude  of  metaphysical  abstraction. 
Circumstances  (which  with  some  gentlemen  pass  for  nothing) 
give  in  reality  to  every  political  principle  its  distinguishing 
colour  and  discriminating  effect.  The  circumstances  are  what 
render  every  civil  and  political  scheme  beneficial  or  noxious  to 

1  The  great  paper  from  which  the  foregoing  piece  is  taken,  besides  not  be- 
ing,  as  a  whole,  very  well  suited  to  the  purposes  of  this  volume,  is  much  too 
long  for  reproduction  here.  I  have  here  given  that  portion  of  it  which  I  have 
long  been  in  the  habit  of  reading  the  oftenest,  and  which  is  regarded  by  many 
as  the  most  eloquent  and  interesting;  though  there  are  several  others  abun- 
dantly worthy  of  its  fellowship.  But,  if  pupils  once  get  ensouled  with  a  real 
taste  for  Burke,  they  will  naturally  be  carried  on  to  study,  not  only  the  whole 
of  this  paper,  but  also  many  other  of  his  works  not  contained  in  this  volume. 


LIBERTY   IK  THE   ABSTRACT.  191 

mankind.  Abstractedly  speaking,  government,  as  well  as  lib- 
erty, is  good  ;  yet  could  I,  in  common  sense,  ten  years  ago,  have 
felicitated  France  on  her* enjoyment  of  a  government,  (for  she 
then  had  a  government,)  without  inquiry  what  the  nature  of 
that  government  was,  or  how  it  was  administered?  Can  I  now 
congratulate  the  same  nation  upon  its  freedom?  Is  it  because 
liberty  in  the  abstract  may  be  classed  amongst  the  blessings  of 
mankind,  that  I  am  seriously  to  felicitate  a  madman  who  has 
escaped  from  the  protecting  restraint  and  wholesome  darkness 
of  his  cell,  on  his  restoration  to  the  enjoyment  of  light  and  lib- 
erty? Am  I  to  congratulate  a  highwayman  and  murderer  who 
has  broke  prison,  upon  the  recovery  of  his  natural  rights? 
This  would  be  to  act  over  again  the  scene  of  the  criminals  con- 
demned to  the  galleys,  and  their  heroic  deliverer,  the  meta- 
physic  Knight  of  the  Sorrowful  Countenance. 

When  I  see  the  spirit  of  liberty  in  action,  I  see  a  strong  prin- 
ciple at  work  ;  and  this,  for  a  while,  is.  all  I  can  possibly  know 
of  it.  The  wild  gas,  the  fixed  air,  is  plainly  broke  loose:  but 
we  ought  to  suspend  our  judgment  until  the  first  effervescence 
is  a  little  subsided,  till  the  liquor  is  cleared,  and  until  we  see 
something  deeper  than  the  agitation  of  a  troubled  and  frothy 
surface.  I  must  be  tolerably  sure,  before  I  venture  publicly  to 
congratulate  men  upon  a  blessing,  that  they  have  really  re- 
ceived one.  Flattery  corrupts  both  the  receiver  and  the  giver  ; 
and  adulation  is  not  of  more  service  to  the  people  than  to  kings. 
I  should  therefore  suspend  my  congratulations  on  the  new  lib- 
erty of  France,  until  I  was  informed  how  it  had  been  combined 
with  government ;  with  public  force  ;  with  the  discipline  and 
obedience  of  armies;  with  the  collection  of  an  effective  and 
well-distributed  revenue  ;  with  morality  and  religion  ;  with  the 
security  of  property;  with  peace  and  order ;  with  civil  and  social 
manners.  All  these  (in  their  way)  are  good  things  too;  and, 
without  them,  liberty  is  not  a  benefit  whilst  it  lasts,  and  is  not 
ikely  to  continue  long.  The  effect  of  liberty  to  individuals  is, 
that  they  may  do  what  they  please:  we  ought  to  see  what  it 
will  please  them  to  do,  before  we  risk  congratulations,  which 
may  be  soon  turned  into  complaints.  Prudence  would  dictate 
this  in  the  case  of  separate,  insulated,  private  men.  But  liberty, 
when  men  act  in  bodies,  is  power.  Considerate  people,  before 
they  declare  themselves,  will  observe  the  use  which  is  made  of 
.  and  particularly  of  so  trying  a  thing  as  new  power  in  new 
persons,  of  whose  principles,  tempers,  and  dispositions  they 
have  little  or  no  experience,  and  in  situations,  where  those  who 
appear  the  most  stirring  in  the  scene  may  possibly  not  be  the 
real  movers.— Reflections,  &c. 


192  BURKE. 


FREEDOM  AS  AN  INHERITANCE. 

You  will  observe  that,  from  Magna  CJiarta  to  the  Declaration 
of  Right,  it  has  been  the  uniform  policy  of  our  Constitution  to 
claim  and  assert  our  liberties,  as  an  entailed  inheritance  derived 
to  us  from  our  forefathers,  and  to  be  transmitted  to  our  pos- 
terity ;  as  an  estate  specially  belonging  to  the  people  of  this 
kingdom,  without  any  reference  whatever  to  any  other  more 
general  or  prior  right.  By  this  means  our  Constitution  pre- 
serves a  unity  in  so  great  a  diversity  of  its  parts.  "\Ve  have  an 
inheritable  Crown  ;  an  inheritable  Peerage ;  and  a  House  of 
Commons  and  a  people  inheriting  privileges,  franchises,  and 
liberties,  from  a  long  line  of  ancestors. 

This  policy  appears  to  me  to  be  the  result  of  profound  reflec- 
tion ;  or  rather  the  happy  effect  of  following  Nature,  which  is 
wisdom  without  reflection,  and  above  it.  A  spirit  of  innovation 
is  generally  the  result  of  a  selfish  temper,  and  confined  views. 
People  will  not  look  forward  to  posterity,  who  never  look  back- 
ward to  their  ancestors.  Besides,  the  people  of  England  well 
know  that  the  idea  of  inheritance  furnishes  a  sure  principle  of 
conservation  and  a  sure  principle  of  transmission,  without  at  all 
excluding  a  principle  of  improvement.  It  leaves  acquisition 
free ;  but  it  secures  what  it  acquires.  Whatever  advantages 
are  obtained  by  a  State  proceeding  on  these  maxims,  are  locked 
fast  as  in  a  sort  of  family  settlement ;  grasped  as  in  a  kind  of 
mortmain  for  ever.  By  a  constitutional  policy,  working  after 
the  pattern  of  Nature,  we  receive,  we  hold,  we  transmit  our 
government  and  our  privileges,  in  the  same  manner  in  which 
we  enjoy  and  transmit  our  property  and  our  lives.  The  institu- 
tions of  policy,  the  goods  of  fortune,  the  gifts  of  Providence,  are 
handed  down  to  us,  and  from  us,  in  the  same  course  and  order. 
Our  political  system  is  placed  in  a  just  correspondence  and 
symmetry  with  the  order  of  the  world,  and  with  the  mode  of 
existence  decreed  to  a  permanent  body  composed  of  transitory 
parts;  wherein,  by  the  disposition  of  a  stupendous  wisdom, 
moulding  together  the  great  mysterious  incorporation  of  the 
human  race,  the  whole,  at  one  time,  is  never  old,  or  middle- 
aged,  or  young,  but,  in  a  condition  of  unchangeable  constancy, 
moves  on  through  the  varied  tenour  of  perpetual  decay,  fall, 
re-novation,  and  progression.  Thus,  by  preserving  the  method 
of  Nature  in  the  conduct  of  the  State,  in  what  we  improve  we 
are  never  wholly  new  ;  in  \vhat  we  retain  we  are  never  wholly 
obsolete.  By  adhering  in  this  manner  and  on  these  principles 
to  our  forefathers,  we  are  guided,  not  by  the  superstition  of 
antiquarians,  but  by  the  spirit  of  philosophic  analogy.  In  this 


FREEDOM   AS   AN   INHERITANCE.  193 

choice  of  inheritance  we  have  given  to  our  frame  of  polity  the 
image  of  a  relation  in  blood;  binding  up  the  Constitution  of  our 
country  with  our  dearest  domestic  ties  ;  adopting  our  funda- 
mental laws  into  the  bosom  of  our  family  affections ;  keeping 
inseparable,  and  cherishing  with  the  warmth  of  all  their  com- 
bined and  mutually  reflected  charities,  our  State,  our  hearths, 
our  sepulchres,  and  our  altars. 

Through  the  same  plan  of  a  conformity  to  Nature  in  our  arti- 
ficial institutions,  and  by  calling  in  the  aid  of  her  unerring  and 
powerful  instincts  to  fortify  the  fallible  and  feeble  contrivances 
of  our  reason,  we  have  derived  several  other,  and  those  no 
small,  benefits,  from  considering  our  liberties  in  the  light  of  an 
inheritance.  Always  acting  as  if  in  the  presence  of  canonized 
forefathers,  the  spirit  of  freedom,  leading  in  itself  to  misrule 
and  excess,  is  tempered  with  an  awful  gravity.  This  idea  of  a 
liberal  descent  inspires  us  with  a  sense  of  habitual  native  dig- 
nity, which  prevents  that  upstart  insolence  almost  inevitably 
adhering  to  and  disgracing  those  who  are  the  first  acquirers  of 
any  distinction.  ]5y  this  means  our  liberty  becomes  a  noble 
freedom,  it  carries  an  imposing  and  majestic  aspect.  It  has  a 
pedigree  and  illustrating  ancestors.  It  has  its  bearings  and  its 
ensigns  armorial.  It  has  its  gallery  of  portraits  ;  its  monu- 
mental inscriptions  ;  its  records,  evidences,  and  titles.  We  pro- 
cure reverence  to  our  civil  institutions  on  the  principle  upon 
which  Nature  teaches  us  to  revere  individual  men, — on  account 
of  their  age,  and  on  account  of  those  from  whom  they  are  de- 
scended. All  your  sophisters  cannot  produce  any  thing  better 
adapted  to  preserve  a  rational  and  manly  freedom  than  the 
(our.-e  that  we  have  pursued,  who  have  chosen  our  nature 
rather  than  our  speculations,  our  breasts  rather  than  our  in- 
ventions, for  the  great  conservatories  and  magazines  of  our 
rights  and  privileges. 

You  might,  if  you  pleased,  have  profited  of  our  example,  and 
have  given  to  your  recovered  freedom  a  correspondent  dignity. 
Your  privileges,  though  discontinued,  were  not  lost  to  memory. 
Your  ( 'onstitiition,  it  is  true,  whilst  you  were  out  of  possession, 
suffered  waste  and  dilapidation;  but  you  possessed  in  some 
parts  tin-  walls,  and,  in  all,  the  foundations,  of  a  noble  and 
M-Mi-ralile  castle.  You  might  have  repaired  those  walls;  you 
might  have  built  on  those  old  foundations.  Your  Constitution 
was  su-pended  before  it  was  perfected;  but  you  had  the  ele- 
ments of  a  constitution  very  nearly  as  good  as  could  be  wished. 
Jn  your  old  states2  you  possessed  that  variety  of  parts  corre- 

2    Slates,  as  (lie  word  is  here  used,  arc  orders,  or  ranks,  the  several  bodies  or 
flagon  of  men  hh.'iriug  in  the  powers  of  government  or  of  the  State.    Thus,  in 


194  BURKE. 

spending  with  the  various  descriptions  of  which  your  community 
was  happily  composed ;  you  had  all  that  combination  and  all 
that  opposition  of  interests,  you  had  that  action  and  counterac- 
tion, which,  in  the  natural  and  in  the  political  world,  from  the 
reciprocal  struggle  of  discordant  powers,  draws  out  the  har- 
mony of  the  universe.  These  opposed  and  conflicting  interests, 
which  you  considered  as  so  great  a  blemish  in  your  old  and  in 
our  present  Constitution,  interpose  a  salutary  check  to  all 
precipitate  resolutions.  They  render  deliberation  a  matter  not 
of  choice,  but  of  necessity  ;  they  make  all  change  a  subject  of 
compromise,  which  naturally  begets  moderation;  they  produce 
temperaments,  preventing  the  sore  evil  of  harsh,  crude,  unquali- 
fied reformations  ;  and  rendering  all  the  headlong  exertions  of 
arbitrary  power,  in  the  few  or  in  the  many,  for  ever  impractica- 
ble. Through  that  diversity  of  members  and  interests,  general 
liberty  had  as  many  securities  as  there  were  separate  views  in 
the  several  orders ;  whilst,  by  pressing  down  the  whole  by  the 
weight  of  a  real  monarchy,  the  separate  parts  would  have 
been  prevented  from  warping,  and  starting  from  their  allotted 
places. 

You  had  all  these  advantages  in  your  ancient  states  ;  but  you 
chose  to  act  as  if  you  had  never  been  moulded  into  civil  society, 
and  had  every  thing  to  begin  anew.  You  began  ill,  because 
you  began  by  despising  everything  that  belonged  to  you.  You 
set  up  your  trade  without  a  capital.  If  the  last  generations 
of  your  country  appeared  without  much  lustre  in  your  eves, 
you  might  have  passed  them  by,  and  derived  your  claims  from 
a  more  early  race  of  ancestors.  Under  a  pious  predilection  for 
those  ancestors,  your  imaginations  would  have  realized  in  them 
a  standard  of  virtue  and  wisdom  beyond  the  vulgar  practice  of 
the  hour  ;  and  you  would  have  risen  with  the  example  to  whose 
imitation  you  aspired.  Respecting  your  forefathers,  you  would 
have  been  taught  to  respect  yourselves.  You  would  not  have 
chosen  to  consider  the  French  as  a  people  of  yesterday,  as  a 
nation  of  low-born,  servile  wretches  until  the  emancipating  year 
of  1780.  In  order  to  furnish,  at  the  expense  of  your  honour,  an 
excuse  to  your  apologists  here  for  several  enormities  of  yours, 
you  would  not  have  been  content  to  be  represented  as  a  gang 
of  Maroon  slaves,  suddenly  broke  loose  from  the  house  of 
bondage,  and  therefore  to  be  pardoned  for  your  abuse  of  the 
liberty  to  which  you  were  not  accustomed,  and  ill  fitted. 
Would  it  not,  my  worthy  friend,  have  been  wiser  to  have  you 

England,  King,  Lords,  Commons,  and  Clergy  arc  states  or  estates  of  the  realm; 
though  the  latter,  the  Clergy,  have  no  direct  or  formal  organ,  as  such,  except 
the  Bench  of  Bishops  in  the  House  of  Peers. 


FREEDOM   AS  AN  INHERITANCE.  195 

thought,  what  I,  for  one,  always  thought  you,  a  generous  and 
gallant  nation,  long  misled  to  your  disadvantage  by  your  high 
and  romantic  sentiments  of  fidelity,  honour,  and  loyalty ;  that 
events  had  been  unfavourable  to  you,  but  that  you  were  not 
enslaved  through  any  illiberal  or  servile  disposition ;  that  in 
your  most  devoted  submission  you  were  actuated  by  a  principle 
of  public  spirit,  and  that  it  was  your  country  you  worshipped 
in  the  person  of  your  King?  Had  you  made  it  to  be  under- 
stood, that  in  the  delusion  of  this  amiable  error  you  had  gone 
further  than  your  wise  ancestors ;  that  you  were  resolved  to 
resume  your  ancient  privileges,  whilst  you  preserved  the  spirit 
of  your  ancient  and  your  recent  loyalty  and  honour ;  or  if, 
diffident  of  yourselves,  and  not  clearly  discerning  the  almost 
obliterated  Constitution  of  your  ancestors,  you  had  looked  to 
your  neighbours  in  this  land,  who  had  kept  alive  the  ancient 
principles  and  models  of  the  old  common  law  of  Europe 
meliorated  and  adapted  to  its  present  state, — by  following  wise 
examples  you  would  have  given  new  examples  of  wisdom  to  the 
world.  You  would  have  rendered  the  cause  of  liberty  venera- 
ble in  the  eyes  of  every  worthy  mind  in  every  nation.  You 
would  have  shamed  despotism  from  the  Earth,  by  showing 
that  freedom  was  not  only  reconcilable,  but,  as  when  well 
disciplined  it  is,  auxiliary  to  law.  You  would  have  had  an 
unoppressive  but  a  productive  revenue.  You  would  have  had 
a  flourishing  commerce  to  feed  it.  You  would  have  had  a 
free  constitution  ;  a  potent  monarchy ;  a  disciplined  army ;  a 
reformed  and  venerated  clergy;  a  mitigated  but  spirited  no- 
bility, to  load  your  virtue,  not  to  overlay  it;  you  would  have 
had  a  liberal  order  of  commons,  to  emulate  and  to  recruit  that 
nobility ;  you  would  have  had  a  protected,  satisfied,  laborious, 
and  obedient  people,  taught  to  seek  and  to  recognize  the  hap- 
piness that  is  to  be  found  by  virtue  in  all  conditions  ;  in  which 
consists  the  true  moral  equality  of  mankind,  and  not  in  that 
monstrous  fiction  which,  by  inspiring  false  ideas  and  vain 
expectations  into  men  destined  to  travel  in  the  obscure  walk  of 
laborious  life,  serves  only  to  aggravate  and  embitter  that  real 
inequality  which  it  never  can  remove  ;  and  which  the  order  of 
civil  life  establishes  as  much  for  the  benefit  of  those  whom  it 
must  leave  in  an  humble  state,  as  those  whom  it  is  able  to  exalt 
to  a  condition  more  splendid,  but  not  more  happy.  You  had  a 
smooth  and  easy  career  of  felicity  and  glory  laid  open  to  you, 
beyond  any  thing  recorded  in  the  history  of  the  world ;  but 
you  have  shown  that  difficulty  is  good  for  man. 

Compute  your  gains:  see  what  is  got  by  those  extravagant 
and  presumptuous  speculations  which  have  taught  your  leaders 
to  despise  all  their  predecessors,  and  all  their  contemporaries, 


196  BURKE. 

and  even  to  despise  themselves,  until  the  moment  in  which 
they  became  truly  despicable.  By  following  those  false  lights, 
France  has  bought  undisguised  calamities  at  a  higher  price 
than  any  nation  has  purchased  the  most  unequivocal  blessings  1 
France  has  bought  poverty  by  crime  1  France  has  not  sacri- 
ficed her  virtue  to  her  interest,  but  she  has  abandoned  her 
interest,  that  she  might  prostitute  her  virtue.  All  other  na- 
tions have  begun  the  fabric  of  a  new  government,  or  the  re- 
formation of  an  old,  by  establishing  originally,  or  by  enforcing 
with  greater  exactness,  some  rites  or  other  of  religion.  All 
other  people  have  laid  the  foundations  of  civil  freedom  in  se- 
verer manners,  and  a  system  of  a  more  austere  and  masculine 
morality.  France,  when  she  let  loose  the  reins  of  regal  author- 
ity, doubled  the  license  of  a  ferocious  dissoluteness  in  manners. 
and  of  an  insolent  irreligion  in  opinions  and  practices  ;  and  has 
extended  through  all  ranks  of  life,  as  if  she  were  communicat- 
ing some  privilege,  or  laying  open  some  secluded  benefit,  all 
the  unhappy  corruptions  that  usually  were  the  disease  of 
wealth  and  power.  This  is  one  of  the  new  principles  of  equal- 
ity in  France. 

France,  by  the  perfidy  of  her  leaders,  has  utterly  disgraced 
the  tone  of  lenient  counsel  in  the  cabinets  of  princes,  and  dis- 
armed it  of  its  most  potent  topics.  She  has  sanctified  the  dark, 
suspicious  maxims  of  tyrannous  distrust ;  and  taught  kings  to 
tremble  at  (what  will  hereafter  be  called)  the  delusive  plausi- 
bilities of  moral  politicians.  Sovereigns  will  consider  those 
who  advise  them  to  place  an  unlimited  confidence  in  their  peo- 
ple, as  subverters  of  their  thrones  ;  as  traitors  who  aim  at  their 
destruction,  by  leading  their  easy  good-nature,  under  specious 
pretences,  to  admit  combinations  of  bold  and  faithless  men  into 
a  participation  of  their  power.  This  alone  (if  there  were  noth- 
ing else)  is  an  irreparable  calamity  to  you  and  mankind.  Re- 
member that  your  Parliament  of  Paris  told  your  King  that,  in 
calling  the  states  together,  he  had  nothing  to  fear  but  the  prod- 
igal excess  of  their  zeal  in  providing  for  the  support  of  the 
throne.  It  is  right  that  these  men  should  hide  their  heads.  It 
is  right  that  they  should  bear  their  part  in  the  ruin  which  their 
counsel  has  brought  on  their  sovereign  and  their  country. 
Such  sanguine  declarations  tend  to  lull  authority  asleep ;  to 
encourage  it  rashly  to  engage  in  perilous  adventures  of  untried 
policy ;  to  neglect  those  provisions,  preparations,  and  precau- 
tions, which  distinguish  benevolence  from  imbecility ;  and 
without  which  no  man  can  answer  for  the  salutary  effect  of  an y 
abstract  plan  of  government  or  of  freedom.  For  want  of  these, 
they  have  seen  the  medicine  of  the  State  corrupted  into  its  poi- 
son. They  have  seen  the  French  rebel  against  a  mild  and  law- 


FREEDOM   AS   AN   INHERITANCE.  197 

ful  monarch,  with  more  fury,  outrage,  and  insult,  than  ever 
any  people  has  been  known  to  rise  against  the  most  illegal 
usurper,  or  the  most  sanguinary  tyrant.  Their  resistance  was 
made  to  concession ;  their  revolt  was  from  protection ;  their 
blow  was  aimed  at  a  hand  holding  out  graces,  favours,  and 
immunities. 

This  was  unnatural.  The  rest  is  in  order.  They  have  found 
their  punishment  in  their  success.  Laws  overturned ;  tribu- 
nals subverted  ;  industry  without  vigour ;  commerce  expiring  ; 
the  revenue  unpaid,  yet  the  people  impoverished ;  a  Church 
pillaged,  and  a  State  not  relieved ;  civil  and  military  anarchy 
made  the  constitution  of  the  kingdom  ;  every  thing  human  and 
divine  sacrificed  to  the  idol  of  public  credit,  and  national  bank- 
ruptcy the  consequence  ;  and,  to  crown  all,  the  paper  securities 
of  new,  precarious,  tottering  power,  the  discredited  paper  secu- 
rities of  impoverished  fraud  and  beggared  rapine,  held  out  as  a 
currency  for  the  support  of  an  empire,  in  lieu  of  the  two  great 
recognized  species  that  represent  the  lasting,  conventional 
credit  of  mankind,  which  disappeared  and  hid  themselves  in 
the  earth  from  whence  they  came,  when  the  principle  of  prop- 
erty, whose  creatures  and  representatives  they  are,  was  sys- 
tematically subverted. 

Were  all  these  dreadful  things  necessary?  Were  they  the 
inevitable  results  of  the  desperate  struggle  of  determined  patri- 
mpelled  to  wade  through  blood  and  tumult,  to  the  quiet 
shore  of  a  tranquil  and  prosperous  liberty  ?  No  !  nothing  like 
it.  The  fresli  ruins  of  France,  which  shock  our  feelings  wher- 
ever we  can  turn  our  eyes,  are  not  the  devastation  of  civil  war ; 
they  are  the  sad  but  instructive  monuments  of  rash  and  igno- 
rant counsel  in  time  of  profound  peace.  They  are  the  display 
of  inconsiderate  and  presumptuous,  because  unresisted  and 
irresistible,  authority.  The  persons  who  have  thus  squandered 
a-.vay  the  precious  treasure  of  their  crimes,  the  persons  who 
have  made  this  prodigal  and  wild  waste  of  public  evils,  (the 
.ike  reserved  for  the  ultimate  ransom  of  the  State,)  have 
their  progress  with  little,  or  rather  with  no  opposition  at 
all.  Their  whole  march  was  more  like  a  triumphal  procession 
than  the  progress  of  a  war.  Their  pioneers  have  gone  before 
them,  and  demolished  and  laid  everything  level  at  their  feet. 
Not  one  drop  of  their  blond  have  they  shed  in  the  cause  of  the 
country  they  have  ruined.  They  have  made  no  sacrifices  to 
their  projects  of  greater  consequence  than  their  shoe-buckles, 
whilst  they  were  imprisoning  their  King,  murdering  their  fellow- 
eiti/ens,  and  bathing  in  tears,  and  plunging  in  poverty  and  dis- 
tress, thousands  of  worthy  men  and  worthy  families.  Their 


198  BURKE.  . 

cruelty  has  not  even  been  the  base  result  of  fear.  It  has  been 
the  effect  of  their  sense  of  perfect  safety,  in  authorizing  trea- 
sons, robberies,  rapes,  assassinations,  slaughters,  and  burnings, 
throughout  their  harassed  land. — Reflections,  &c. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  THIRD  ESTATE. 

Ix  the  calling  of  the  States-General  of  France,  the  first  thing 
that  struck  me  was  a  great  departure  from  the  ancient  course. 
I  found  the  representation  for  the  Third  Estate  composed  of 
six  hundred  persons.  They  were  equal  in  number  to  the  rep- 
resentatives of  both  the  other  orders.  If  the  orders  were  to 
act  separately,  the  number  would  not,  beyond  the  consideration 
of  the  expense,  be  of  much  moment  But  when  it  became 
apparent  that  the  three  orders  were  to  be  melted  down  into 
one,  the  policy  and  necessary  effect  of  this  numerous  represen- 
tation became  obvious.  A  very  small  desertion  from  either  of 
the  other  two  orders  must  throw  the  power  of  both  into  the 
hands  of  the  third.  In  fact,  the  whole  power  of  the  State  was 
soon  resolved  into  that  body.  Its  due  composition  became 
therefore  of  infinitely  the  greater  importance. 

Judge,  Sir,  of  my  surprise,  when  I  found  that  a  very  great 
proportion  of  the  Assembly  (a  majority,  I  believe,  of  the  mem- 
bers who  attended)  was  composed  of  practitioners  in  the  law. 
It  was  composed,  not  of  distinguished  magistrates,  who  had 
givi-n  pledges  to  their  country  of  their  science,  prudence,  and 
integrity ;  not  of  leading  advocates,  the  glory  of  the  bar ;  not 
of  renowned  professors  in  universities  ;  but,  for  the  far  greater 
part,  as  it  must  in  such  a  number,  of  the  inferior,  unlearned, 
mechanical,  merely  instrumental  members  of  the  profession. 
There  were  distinguished  exceptions ;  but  the  general  compo- 
sition was  of  obscure  provincial  advocates,  of  stewards  of  petty 
local  jurisdictions,  country  attorneys,  notaries,  and  the  whole 
train  of  the  ministers  of  municipal  litigation,  the  fomenters  and 
conductors  of  the  petty  war  of  village  vexation.  From  the 
moment  I  read  the  list,  I  saw  distinctly,  and  very  nearly  as  it 
has  happened,  all  that  was  to  follow. 

The  degree  of  estimation  in  which  any  profession  is  held 
becomes  the  standard  of  the  estimation  in  which  the  professors 
hold  themselves.  Whatever  the  personal  merits  of  many 
individual  lawyers  might  have  been,  (and  in  many  it  was 
undoubtedly  very  considerable,)  in  that  military  kingdom  no 
part  of  the  profession  had  been  much  regarded,  except  the 


THE   REYOLUTIOXARY  THIRD   ESTATE.  199 

highest  of  all,  who  often  united  to  their  professional  offices 
great  family  splendour,  and  were  invested  with  great  power 
and  authority.  These  certainly  were  highly  respected,  and 
even  with  no  small  degree  of  awe.  The  next  rank  was  not 
much  esteemed  ;  the  mechanical  part  was  in  a  very  low  degree 
of  repute. 

Whenever  the  supreme  authority  is  vested  in  a  body  so 
composed,  it  must  evidently  produce  the  consequences  of 
supreme  authority  placed  in  the'  hands  of  men  not  taught 
habitually  to  respect  themselves  ;  who  had  no  previous  fortune 
in  character  at  stake  ;  who  could  not  be  expected  to  bear  with 
moderation,  or  to  conduct  with  discretion,  a  power  which  they 
themselves,  more  than  any  others,  must  be  surprised  to  find  in 
their  hands.  Who  could  flatter  himself  that  these  men,  sud- 
denly, and,  as  it  were,  by  enchantment,  snatched  from  the 
humblest  rank  of  subordination,  would  not  be  intoxicated 
with  their  unprepared  greatness?  Who  could  conceive  that 
mon,  who  are  habitually  meddling,  daring,  subtle,  active,  of 
litigious  dispositions  and  unquiet  minds,  would  easily  fall  back 
into  their  old  condition  of  obscure  contention,  and  laborious, 
low,  and  unprofitable  chicane?  Who  could  doubt  but  that,  at 
any  expense  to  the  State,  of  which  they  understood  nothing, 
they  must  pursue  their  private  interests,  which  they  under- 
stood but  too  well  ?  It  was  not  an  event  depending  on  chance 
or  contingency.  It  was  inevitable ;  it  was  necessary ;  it  was 
planted  in  the  nature  of  things.  They  must  join  (if  their 
capacity  did  not  permit  them  to  lead)  in  any  project  which 
could  procure  to  them  a  litiyintis  roflntituUwi;  which  could  lay 
open  to  them  those  innumerable  lucrative  jobs  which  follow  in 
the  train  of  all  groat  convulsions  and  revolutions  in  the  State, 
and  particularly  in  all  groat  and  violent  permutations  of  prop- 
erty. Was  it  to  be  expected  that  they  would  attend  to  the 
stability  of  property,  whose  existence  had  always  depended 
upon  whatever  rendered  property  questionable,  ambiguous,  and 
insecure?  Their  objects  would  be  enlarged  with  their  cleva- 
'ion,  but  their  disposition,  and  habits,  and  mode  of  accomplish- 
ing their  designs,  must  remain  the  same. 

We  know  that  the  British  House  of  Commons,  without  shut- 
ting its  doors  to  any  merit  in  any  class,  is,  by  the  sure  opera- 
tion of  adequate  causes,  filled  with  every  thing  illustrious  in 
rank,  in  descent,  in  hereditary  and  in  acquired  opulence,  in  cul- 
tivated talents,  in  military,  civil,  naval,  and  politic  distinction, 
that  the  country  can  afford.  But  supposing,  what  hardly  can 
be  supposed  as  a  case,  that  the  House  of  Commons  should  be 
composed  in  the  same  manner  with  the  Tiers  Etat  in  France, 
would  this  dominion  of  chicane  be  borne  with  patience,  or  even 


200  BURKE. 

conceived  without  horror?  God  forbid  I  should  insinuate  any 
thing  derogatory  to  that  profession  which  is  another  priesthood, 
administrating  the  rights  of  sacred  justice.  But  whilst  I  revere 
men  in  the  functions  which  belong  to  them,  and  would  do  as 
much  as  one  man  can  do  to  prevent  their  exclusion  from  any,  I 
cannot,  to  flatter  them,  give  the  lie  to  Mature.  They  are  good 
and  useful  in  the  composition ;  they  must  be  mischievous  if 
they  preponderate  so  as  virtually  to  become  the  whole.  Their 
very  excellence  in  their  peculiar  functions  may  be  far  from  a 
qualification  for  others.  It  cannot  escape  observation  that, 
when  men  are  too  much  confined  to  professional  and  faculty 
habits,  and  as  it  were  inveterate  in  the  recurrent  employment 
of  that  narrow  circle,  they  are  rather  disabled  than  qualified  for 
whatever  depends  on  the  knowledge  of  mankind,  on  experience 
in  mixed  alfairs,  on  a  comprehensive,  connected  view  of  the  va- 
rious, complicated,  external  and  internal  interests  which  go  to 
the  formation  of  that  multifarious  thing  called  a  State. 

After  all,  if  the  House  of  Commons  were  to  have  a  wholly 
professional  and  faculty  composition,  what  is  the  power  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  circumscribed  and  shut  in  by  the  immove- 
able  barriers  of  laws,  usages,  positive  rules  of  doctrine  and  prac- 
tice, counterpoised  by  the  House  of  Lords,  and  every  moment 
of  its  existence  at  the  discretion  of  the  Crown  to  continue,  pro- 
rogue, or  dissolve  us  ?  The  power  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
direct  or  indirect,  is  indeed  great ;  and  long  may  it  be  able  to 
preserve  its  greatness,  and  the  spirit  belonging  to  true  great- 
ness, at  the  full !  —  and  it  will  do  so,  as  long  as  it  can  keep  the 
breakers  of  law  in  India  from  becoming  the  makers  of  law  for 
England.  The  power,  however,  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
when  least  diminished,  is  as  a  drop  of  water  in  the  ocean,  com- 
pared to  that  residing  in  a  settled  majority  of  your  National 
Assembly.  That  Assembly,  since  the  destruction  of  the  orders, 
has  no  fundamental  law,  no  strict  convention,  no  respected 
usage,  to  restrain  it.  Instead  of  finding  themselves  obliged  to 
conform  to  a  fixed  constitution,  they  have  a  power  to  make  a 
constitution  which  shall  conform  to  their  designs.  Nothing  in 
Heaven  or  upon  Earth  can  serve  as  a  control  on  them.  What 
ought  to  be  the  heads,  the  hearts,  the  dispositions,  that  are 
qualified,  or  that  dare,  not  only  to  make  laws  under  a  fixed  con- 
stitution, but  at  one  heat  to  strike  out  a  totally  new  constitution 
for  a  great  kingdom,  and  in  every  part  of  it,  from  the  monarch 
on  the  throne  to  the  vestry  of  a  parish?  But— "fools  rush  in 
where  angels  fear  to  tread."  In  such  a  state  of  unbounded 
power  for  undefined  and  undefinable  purposes,  the  evil  of  a 
moral  and  almost  physical  inaptitude  of  the  man  to  the  f unc- 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  THIRD   ESTATE.  201 

tion  must  be  the  greatest  we  can  conceive  to  happen  in  the 
management  of  human  affairs. 

Having  considered  the  composition  of  the  Third  Estate  as  it 
stood  in  its  original  frame,  I  took  a  view  of  the  representatives 
of  the  clergy.  There  too  it  appeared  that  full  as  little  regard 
was  had  to  the  general  security  of  property,  or  to  the  aptitude 
of  the  deputies  for  their  public  purposes,  in  the  principles  of 
their  election.  That  election  was  so  contrived,  as  to  send  a 
very  large  proportion  of  mere  country  curates  to  the  great  and 
arduous  work  of  new-modelling  a  State ;  men  who  never  had 
seen  the  State  so  much  as  in  a  picture  ;  men  who  knew  nothing 
of  the  world  beyond  the  bounds  of  an  obscure  village  ;  who, 
immersed  in  hopeless  poverty,  could  regard  all  property, 
whether  secular  or  ecclesiastical,  with  no  other  eye  than  that  of 
envy  ;  among  whom  must  be  many  who,  for  the  smallest  hope 
of  the  meanest  dividend  in  plunder,  would  readily  join  in  any 
attempts  upon  a  body  of  wealth,  in  which  they  could  hardly 
look  to  have  any  share,  except  in  a  general  scramble.  Instead 
of  balancing  the  power  of  the  active  chicaners  in  the  other  As- 
sembly, these  curates  must  necessarily  become  the  active  coad- 
jutors, or  at  best  the  passive  instruments,  of  those  by  whom 
they  had  been  habitually  guided  in  their  petty  village  concerns. 
They  too  could  hardly  be  the  most  conscientious  of  their  kind, 
who,  presuming  upon  their  incompetent  understanding,  could 
intrigue  for  a  trust  which  led  them  from  their  natural  relation 
to  their  Hocks,  and  their  natural  spheres  of  action,  to  undertake 
the  regeneration  of  kingdoms.  This  preponderating  weight, 
beimr  added  to  the  force  of  the  body  of  chicane  in  the  Tiers  Etat, 
completed  that  momentum  of  ignorance,  rashness,  presumption, 
and  lust  of  plunder,  which  nothing  has  been  able  to  resist. 

To  observing  men  it  must  have  appeared  from  the  beginning, 
that  the  majority  of  the  Third  Estate,  in  conjunction  with  such 
a  deputation  from  the  clergy  as  I  have  described,  whilst  it  ptir- 
sin-d  the  destruction  of  the  nobility,  would  inevitably  become 
subservient  to  the  worst  designs  of  individuals  in  that  class. 
In  tht  spoil  and  humiliation  of  their  own  order  these  individu- 
als would  possess  a  sure  fund  for  the  pay  of  their  new  follow- 
ers. To  squander  away  the  objects  which  made  the-  happiness 
of  their  fellows  would  be  to  them  no  sacrifice  at  all.  Turbulent, 
;riited  men  of  quality,  in  proportion  as  they  are  puffed 
up  with  personal  pride  and  arrogance,  generally  despise  their 
own  order.  One  of  the  (ir>1  symptoms  they  discover  of  a  seliish 
and  mischievous  ambition  is  a  profligate  disregard  of  a  dignity 
which  they  partake  with  others.  To  be  attached  to  the  subdi- 
vision, to  love  the  little  platoon  we  belong  to  in  society,  is  the 
first  principle  (the  germ,  as  it  were)  of  public  affections.  It  is 


202  BURKE. 

the  first  link  in  the  series  by  which  we  proceed  towards  a  love 
to  our  country,  and  to  mankind.  The  interest  of  that  portion 
of  social  arrangement  is  a  trust  in  the  hands  of  all  those  who 
compose  it ;  and,  as  none  but  bad  men  would  justify  it  in  abuse, 
none  but  traitors  would  barter  it  away  for  their  own  personal 
advantage. 

When  men  of  rank  sacrifice  all  ideas  of  dignity  to  an  ambition 
without  a  distinct  object,  and  work  with  low  instruments  and 
for  low  ends,  the  whole  composition  becomes  low  and  base. 
Does  not  something  like  this  now  appear  in  France  ?  Does  it 
not  produce  something  ignoble  and  inglorious  ?  a  kind  of  mean- 
ness in  all  the  prevalent  policy  ?  a  tendency  in  all  that  is  done  to 
lower,  along  with  individuals,  all  the  dignity  and  importance  of 
the  State  ?  Other  revolutions  have  been  conducted  by  persons 
who,  whilst  they  attempted  or  affected  changes  in  the  common- 
wealth, sanctified  their  ambition  by  advancing  the  dignity  of 
the  people  whose  peace  they  troubled.  They  had  long  views. 
They  aimed  at  the  rule,  not  at  the  destruction,  of  their  country. 
They  were  men  of  great  civil  and  great  military  talents,  and,  if 
the  terror,  the  ornament  of  their  age.  The  compliment  made 
to  one  of  the  great  bad  men  of  the  old  stamp  (Cromwell)  by  his 
kinsman,  a  favourite  poet  of  that  time,  shows  what  it  was  he 
proposed,  and  what  indeed  to  a  great  degree  he  accomplished, 
in  the  success  of  his  ambition  : 

"  Still  as  you  rise,  the  State,  exalted  too, 
Finds  no  distemper  whilst  'tis  changed  by  you; 
Changed  like  the  world's  great  scene,  when  without  noise 
The  rising  Sun  night's  vulgar  lights  destroys."8 

These  disturbers  were  not  so  much  like  men  usurping  power 
as  asserting  their  natural  place  in  society.  Their  rising  was  to 
illuminate  and  beautify  the  world.  Their  conquest  over  their 
competitors  was  by  outshining  them.  The  hand  that,  like  a 
destroying  angel,  smote  the  country  communicated  to  it  the 
force  and  energy  under  which  it  suffered.  I  do  not  say,  (God 
forbid  ! )  I  do  not  say  that  the  virtues  of  such  men  were  to  be 
taken  as  a  balance  to  their  crimes  ;  but  they  were  some  correct- 
ive  to  their  effects.  Such  was,  as  I  said,  our  Cromwell.  Such 

3  This  quotation  is  from  a  poem  by  Edmund  Waller,  entitled  "  A  Panegyric 
on  my  Lord  Protector,  of  the  Present  Greatness  and  Joint  Interest  of  his  High- 
ness and  this  Nation."  It  is  the  best  of  Waller's  poems,  and  that  is  saying  a 
good  deal  for  it.  Waller's  mother  was  a  sister  of  the  celebrated  John  Ilamp- 
dcn,  and  through  her  he  was  related  to  Cromwell ;  I  do  not  know  in  what  de- 
gree. He  was  elected  to  Parliament  twice  before  reaching  the  age  of  twenty- 
one,  and  was  also  in  all  the  parliaments  held  during  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Second.  I  must  add  that  Waller  owned  and  occupied  the  same  estate  at  Bea- 
consficld  where  Burke  lived  from  1768  till  his  death. 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  THIRD   ESTATE.  203 

were  your  whole  race  of  Guises,  Conors,  and  Colignis.  Such  the 
Eichelieus,  who  in  more  quiet  times  acted  in  the  spirit  of  a  civil 
war.  Such,  as  better  men,  and  in  a  less  dubious  cause,  were 
your  Henry  the  Fourth  and  your  Sully,  though  nursed  in  civil 
confusions,  and  not  wholly  without  some  of  their  taint.  It  is  a 
thing  to  be  wondered  at,  to  see  how  very  soon  France,  when 
she  had  a  moment  to  respire,  recovered  and  emerged  from  the 
longest  and  most  dreadful  civil  war  that  ever  was  known  in  any 
nation.  Why?  Because,  among  all  their  massacres,  they  had 
not  slain  the  mind  in  their  country.  A  conscious  dignity,  a  no- 
ble pride,  a  generous  sense  of  glory  and  emulation  was  not 
extinguished.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  kindled  and  inilamcd. 
The  organs  also  of  the  State,  however  shattered,  existed.  All 
the  prizes  of  honour  and  virtue,  all  the  rewards,  all  the  distinc- 
tions remained.  But  your  present  confusion,  like  a  palsy,  has 
attack, M!  the-  fountain  of  life  itself.  Every  person  in  your  coun- 
try, in  a  situation  to  be  actuated  by  a  principle  of  honour,  is 
disgraced  and  degraded,  and  can  entertain  no  sensation  of  life, 
except  in  a  mortified  and  humiliated  indignation.  But  this 
generation  will  quickly  pass  away.  The  next  generation  of  the 
nobility  will  resemble  the  artificers  and  clowns,  and  money- 
jobbers,  usurers,  and  Jews,  who  will  be  always  their  fellows, 
sometimes  their  masters.  Believe  me,  Sir,  those  who  attempt 
to  level,  never  equalize.  In  all  societies,  consisting  of  various 
descriptions  of  citizens,  some  description  must  be  uppermost. 
The  levellers  therefore  only  change  and  pervert  the  natural 
order  of  tilings  ;  they  load  the  edifice  of  society,  by  setting  up 
in  the  air  what  the  solidity  of  the  structure  requires  to  be  on 
the  ground. 

I  do  not,  my  dear  Sir,  conceive  you  to  be  of  that  sophistical, 
captious  spirit,  or  of  that  uncandid  dulness,  as  to  require,  for 
every  general  observation  or  sentiment,  an  explicit  detail  of  the 

lives  and  exceptions  which  reason  will  presume  to  be 
included  in  all  the  general  propositions  which  come  from  rea- 

!o  men.  You  do  not  imagine  that  I  wish  to  confine  power, 
authority,  and  distinction  to  blood  and  names  and  titles.  No, 
Sir!  There  is  no  qualification  for  government  but  virtue  and 
\\i>doni,  actual  or  presumptive.  Wherever  they  are  actually 
found,  they  have,  in  whatever  state,  condition,  profession,  or 

tlie  passport  of  Heaven  to  human  place  and  honour. 
Woe  to  the  country  which  would  madly  and  impiously  reject 

rvice  of  the  talents  and  virtues,  civil,  military,  or  religious, 
that  are  given  to  grace  and  to  serve  it;  and  would  condemn  to 
obscurity  every  thing  formed  to  diffuse  lustre  and  glory  around 
a  State!  Woe  to  that  country,  too,  that,  passing  into  the  oppo- 
site extreme,  considers  a  low  education,  a  mean,  contracted  view 


204  BURKE. 

of  things,  a  sordid,  mercenary  occupation,  as  a  preferable  title 
to  command!  Every  thing  ought  to  be  open  ;  but  not  indiffer- 
ently to  every  man.  Ko  rotation,  no  appointment  by  lot,  no 
mode  of  election  operating  in  the  spirit  of  sortition  or  rotation 
can  be  generally  good  in  a  government  conversant  in  extensive 
objects ;  because  they  have  no  tendency,  direct  or  indirect,  to 
select  the  man  with  a  view  to  the  duty,  or  to  accommodate  the 
one  to  the  other.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  the  road  to  emi- 
nence and  power,  from  obscure  condition,  ought  not  to  be  mudo 
too  easy,  nor  a  thing  too  much  of  course.  If  rare  merit  be  the 
rarest  of  all  rare  things,  it  ought  to  pass  through  some  sort  of 
probation.  The  temple  of  honour  ought  to  be  seated  on  an  em- 
inence. If  it  be  opened  through  virtue,  let  it  be  remembered 
too,  that  virtue  is  never  tried  but  by  some  difficulty  and  some 
struggle. — Reflections,  dec. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  MEX. 

IT  is  no  wonder  that,  with  these  ideas  of  every  thing  in  their 
Constitution  and  government  at  home  as  illegitimate  and 
usurped,  or  at  best  as  a  vain  mockery,  men  look  abroad  with 
an  eager  and  passionate  enthusiasm.  Whilst  they  are  pos- 
feftsed  by  those  notions,  it  is  vain  to  talk  to  them  of  the  practice 
of  their  ancestors,  the  fundamental  laws  of  their  country,  the 
iixed  form  of  a  Constitution,  whose  merits  arc  continued  by 
the  solid  test  of  long  experience,  and  an  increasing  public 
strength  and  national  prosperity.  They  despise  experience  as 
the  wisdom  of  unlettered  men  ;  arid,  as  for  the  rest,  they 
have  wrought  under-ground  a  mine  that  will  blow  up,  at  one 
grand  explosion,  all  examples  of  antiquity,  all  precedents, 
charters,  and  Acts  of  Parliament.  They  have  "the  rights  of 
men."  Against  these  there  can  be  no  prescription  ;  against. 
these  no  agreement  is  binding  :  these  admit  no  temperament 
and  no  compromise:  any  thing  withheld  from  their  full  de- 
mand is  so  much  of  fraud  and  injustice.  Against  these  their 
rights  of  men  let  no  government  look  for  security  in  the  length 
of  its  continuance,  or  in  the  justice  and  lenity  of  its  administra- 
tion. The  objections  of  these  speculatists,  if  its  forms  do  not 
quadrate  with  their  theories,  are  as  valid  against  such  an  old 
and  beneficent  government,  as  against  the  most  violent  i\r- 
anny,  or  the  greenest  usurpation.  They  are  ahvays  at  issue 
with  governments,  not  on  a  question  of  abuse,  but  a  question 
of  competency,  and  a  question  of  title.  I  have  nothing  to  say 
to  the  clumsy  subtilty  of  their  political  metaphysics.  Let 


fun 


THE   EIGHTS   OF  MEN.  205 

them  bo  their  amusement  in  the  schools. — "Ilia  sejactat  in  aula 
—  ^Eolus,  el  dauso  ventorum  carccre  rcgnat." — But  let  them  not 
break  prison  to  burst  like  a  Levanter,  to  sweep  the  Earth  with 
their  hurricane,  and  to  break  up  the  fountains  of  the  great 
deep  to  overwhelm  us. 

Par  am  I  from  denying  in  theory,  full  as  far  is  my  heart  from 
withholding  in  practice,  (if  I  were  of  power  to  give  or  to  with- 
hold,) the  real  rights  of  men.  In  denying  their  false  claims  of 
right,  I  do  not  mean  to  injure  those  which  are  real,  and  are 
such  as  their  pretended  rights  would  totally  destroy.  If  civil 
society  be  made  for  the  advantage  of  man,  all  the  advantages 
for  which  it  is  made  become  his  right.  It  is  an  institution  of 
benelieence  ;  and  law  itself  is  only  beneficence  acting  by  a  rule. 
Men  have  a  right  to  live  by  that  rule  ;  they  have  a  right  to  do 
justice,  as  between  their  fellows,  whether  their  fellows  are 
in  public  function  or  in  ordinary  occupation.  They  have  a 
right  to  the  fruits  of  their  industry,  and  to  the  means  of  mak- 
ing their  industry  fruit I'ul.  They  have  a  right  to  the  acquisi- 
t  their  parents  ;  to  the  nourishment  and  improvement  of 
their  offspring;  to  instruction  in  life,  and  to  consolation  in 
death.  "Whatever  each  man  can  separately  do,  without  trespass- 
ing upon  others,  he  has  a  right  to  do  for  himself ;  and  he  has  a 
right  to  a  fair  portion  of  all  which  society,  with  all  its  combina- 
tions of  skill  and  force,  can  do  in  his  favour.  In  this  partnership 
men  have  equal  rights ;  but  not  t<>  equal  things.  He  that  has 
but  live,  shillings  in  the  partnership,  has  as  good  a  right  to  it, 
as  he  that  lias  live  hundred  pounds  has  to  his  larger  propor- 
tion. But  he  has  not  a  right  to  an  equal  dividend  in  the  prod- 
uct of  the  joint  stock  ;  and  as  to  the  share  of  power,  authority, 
and  direction  which  each  individual  ought  to  have  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  State,  that  I  must  deny  to  be  amongst  the 
direct  original  rights  of  man  in  civil  society;  for  I  have  in  my 
contemplation  the  civil  social  man,  and  no  other.  It  is  a  thing 
to  be  .settled  by  convention. 

If  civil  society  be  the  offspring  of  convention,  that  conven- 
tion must  be  its  law.  That  convention  must  limit  and  modify 
all  the  descriptions  of  constitution  which  arc;  formed  under  it. 
J^very  sort  of  legislative,  judicial,  and  executory  powers  are  its 
creatures.  They  can  have  no  being  in  any  other  state  of 
things  ;  and  how  can  any  man  claim,  under  the  conventions  of 
civil  society,  rights  which  do  not  so  much  as  suppose  its  exist- 
rights  which  are  absolutely  repugnant  to  it  V  One  of  the 
t  motives  to  civil  society,  and  which  becomes  one  of  its 
umlumeiital  rules,  is,  thnt  no  ,m<,i  xh<n'.l.<l  he  jmltjc  in  Jits  own 
IJy  this  each  person  has  at  once  divested  himself  of  the 
lir>t  fundamental  right  of  uncovenantcd  man,  that  is,  to  judge 


206  BURKE. 

for  himself,  and  to  assert  his  own  cause.  He  abdicates  all  right 
to  be  his  own  governor.  He  inclusively,  in  a  great  measure, 
abandons  the  right  of  self-defence,  the  first  law  of  Kature. 
Men  cannot  enjoy  the  rights  of  an  uncivil  and  of  a  civil  state 
together.  That  he  may  obtain  justice,  he  gives  up  his  right  of 
determining  what  it  is  in  points  the  most  essential  to  him. 
That  he  may  secure  some  liberty,  he  makes  a  surrender  in 
trust  of  the  whole  of  it. 

Government  is  not  made  in  virtue  of  natural  rights,  which 
may  and  do  exist  in  total  independence  of  it;  and  exist  in 
much  greater  clearness,  and  in  a  much  greater  degree  of  ab- 
stract perfection  :  but  their  abstract  perfection  is  their  practi- 
cal defect.  By  having  a  right  to  every  thing  they  want  every 
thing.  Government  is  a  contrivance  of  human  wisdom  to 
provide  for  human  wants.  Men  have  a  right  that  these  wants 
should  be  provided  for  by  this  wisdo.n.  Among  these  wants  is 
to  be  reckoned  the  want,  out  of  civil  society,  of  a  sufficient  re- 
straint upon  their  passions.  Society  requires  not  only  that  the 
passions  of  individuals  should  be  subjected,  but  that  even  in 
the  mass  and  body,  as  well  as  in  the  individuals,  the  inclina- 
tions of  men  should  frequently  be  thwarted,  their  will  con- 
trolled, and  their  passions  brought  into  subjection.  This  can 
only  be  done  by  a  power  out  of  themselves;  and  not,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  its  function,  subject  to  that  will  and  to  those  passions 
which  it  is  its  office  to  bridle  and  subdue.  In  this  sense  the 
restraints  on  men,  as  well  as  their  liberties,  are  to  be  reckoned 
among  their  rights.  But  as  the  liberties  and  the  restrictions 
vary  with  times  and  circumstances,  and  admit  of  infinite  modi- 
fications, they  cannot  be  settled  upon  any  abstract  rule  ;  and 
nothing  is  so  foolish  as  to  discuss  them  upon  that  principle. 

The  moment  you  abate  any  thing  from  the  full  rights  of  men, 
each  to  govern  himself,  and  suffer  any  artificial,  positive  limita- 
tion upon,  those  rights,  from  that  moment  the  whole  organi- 
zation of  government  becomes  a  consideration  of  convenience. 
This  it  is  which  makes  the  constitution  of  a  State,  and  the  due 
distribution  of  its  powers,  a  matter  of  the  most  delicate  and 
complicated  skill.  It  requires  a  deep  knowledge  of  human  na- 
ture and  human  necessities,  and  of  the  things  which  facilitate 
or  obstruct  the  various  ends  which  are  to  be  pursued  by  the 
mechanism  of  civil  institutions.  The  State  is  to  have  recruits 
to  its  strength,  and  remedies  to  its  distempers.  What  is  the  use 
of  discussing  a  man's  abstract  right  to  food  or  medicine  ?  The 
question  is  upon  the  method  of  procuring  and  administering 
them.  In  that  deliberation  I  shall  always  advise  to  call  in  the 
aid  of  the  farmer  and  the  physician,  rather  than  the  professor 
of  metaphysics.—  liejlcctions,  &c. 


ABUSE   OF  HISTORY.  207 


ABUSE  OF  HISTORY. 

TV*E  do  not  draw  the  moral  lessons  we  might  from  history. 
On  the  contrary,  without  care  it  may  be  used  to  vitiate  our 
minds  and  to  destroy  our  happiness.  In  history  a  great  volume 
is  unrolled  for  our  instruction,  drawing  the  materials  of  future 
wisdom  from  the  past  errors  and  infirmities  of  mankind.  It 
may,  in  the  perversion,  serve  for  a  magazine,  furnishing  offen- 
sive and  defensive  weapons  for  parties  in  Church  and  State,  and 
supplying  the  means  of  keeping  alive,  or  reviving,  dissensions 
and  animosities,  and  adding  fuel  to  civil  fury.  History  consists, 
for  the  greater  part,  of  the  miseries  brought  upon  the  world  by 
pride,  ambition,  avarice,  revenge,  lust,  sedition,  hypocrisy,  un- 
governed  zeal,  and  all  the  train  of  disorderly  appetites,  which 
shake  the  public  with  the  same 

"  troublous  storms  that  toss 
The  private  state,  and  make  the  life  unsweet." 

These  vices  are  the  causes  of  those  storms.  Eeligion,  morals, 
laws,  prerogatives,  privileges,  liberties,  rights  of  men,  are  the 
pretexts.  The  pretexts  are  always  found  in  some  specious  ap- 
pearance of  a  real  good.  You  would  not  secure  men  from 
tyranny  and  sedition,  by  rooting  out  of  the  mind  the  principles 
to  which  these  fraudulent  pretexts  apply?  If  you  did,  you 
would  root  out  every  thing  that  is  valuable  in  the  human  breast. 
As  these  are  the  pretexts,  so  the  ordinary  actors  and  instru- 
ments in  great  public  evils  are  kings,  priests,  magistrates,  sen- 
ates, parliaments,  national  assemblies,  judges,  and  captains. 
You  would  not  cure  the  evil  by  resolving  that  there  should  be 
no  more  monarchs,  nor  ministers  of  State,  nor  of  the  Gospel ; 
no  interpreters  of  law  ;  no  general  officers  ;  no  public  councils. 
You  might  change  the  names.  The  things  in  some  shape  must 
remain.  A  certain  quantum  of  power  must  always  exist  in  the 
community,  in  some  hands,  and  under  some  appellation.  Wise 
r.ien  -vvill  apply  their  remedies  to  vices,  not  to  names;  to  the 
cnuses  of  evil  which  are  permanent,  not  to  the  occasional  organs 
by  which  they  act,  and  the  transitory  modes  in  which  they  ap- 
pear. Otherwise  you  will  be  wise  historically,  a  fool  in  practice. 
Seldom  have  two  ages  the  same  fashion  in  their  pretexts,  and 
t  he  same  modes  of  mischief.  Wickedness  is  a  little  more  invent- 
ive.  Whilst  you  are  di.-cussing  1'ashion,  the  fashion  is  gone  by. 
The  very  same  vice  assumes  a  new  body.  The  spirit  transmi- 
grates ;  and,  far  from  losing  its  principle  of  life  by  the  change 
of  its  appearance,  it  is  renovated  in  its  new  organs  with  the 
fresh  vigour  of  a  juvenile  activity.  It  walks  abroad,  it  continues 


208  BURKE. 

its  ravages,  whilst  you  are  gibbeting  the  carcass,  or  demolishing 
the  tomb.  You  are  terrifying  yourselves  with  ghosts  and  ap- 
paritions, whilst  your  house  is  the  haunt  of  robbers.  It  is  thus 
with  all  those  who,  attending  only  to  the  shell  and  husk  of  his- 
tory, think  they  are  waging  war  with  intolerance,  pride,  and 
cruelty,  whilst,  under  colour  of  abhorring  the  ill  principles  of 
antiquated  parties,  they  are  authorizing  and  feeding  the  same 
odious  vices  in  different  factions,  and  perhaps  in  worse. 

Your  citizens  of  Paris  formerly  had  lent  themselves  as  the 
ready  instruments  to  slaughter  the  followers  of  Calvin,  at  the 
infamous  massacre  of  St  Bartholomew.  What  should  we  say 
to  those  who  could  think  of  retaliating  on  the  Parisians  of  this 
day  the  abominations  and  horrors  of  that  time  ?  They  are  in- 
deed brought  to  abhor  that  massacre.  Ferocious  as  they  are,  it 
is  not  difficult  to  make  them  dislike  it ;  because  the  politicians 
and  fashionable  teachers  have  no  interest  in  giving  their  pas- 
sions exactly  the  same  direction.  Still,  however,  they  find  it 
their  interest  to  keep  the  same  savage  dispositions  alive.  It 
was  but  the  other  day  that  they  caused  this  very  massacre  to 
be  acted  on  the  stage  for  the  diversion  of  the  descendants  of 
those  who  committed  it.  In  this  tragic  farce  they  produced  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  in  his  robes  of  function,  ordering  general 
slaughter.  Was  this  spectacle  intended  to  make  the  Parisians 
abhor  persecution,  and  loathe  the  effusion  of  blood?  Xo ;  it 
was  to  teack  them  to  persecute  their  own  pastors  ;  it  was  to  ex- 
cite them,  by  raising  a  disgust  and  horror  of  their  clergy,  to  an 
alacrity  in  hunting  down  to  destruction  an  order  which,  if  it 
ought  to  exist  at  all,  ought  to  exist  not  only  in  safety,  but  in 
reverence.  It  was  to  stimulate  their  cannibal  appetites  (which 
one  would  think  had  been  gorged  sufficiently)  by  variety  and 
seasoning  ;  and  to  quicken  them  to  an  alertness  in  new  murders 
and  massacres,  if  it  should  suit  the  purpose  of  the  Guises  of  the 
day.  An  assembly,  in  which  sat  a  multitude  of  priests  and 
prelates,  was  obliged  to  suffer  this  indignity  at  its  door.  The 
author  was  not  sent  to  the  galleys,  nor  the  players  to  the  house 
of  correction.  !Xot  long  after  this  exhibition,  those  players 
came  forward  to  the  Assembly  to  claim  the  rites  of  that  very 
religion  which  they  had  dared  to  expose,  and  to  show  their 
prostituted  faces  in  the  senate,  whilst  the  Archbishop  of  Paris, 
whose  function  was  known  to  his  people  only  by  his  prayers 
and  benedictions,  and  his  wealth  only  by  his  alms,  is  forced  to 
abandon  his  house,  and  to  fly  from  his  Hock,  (as  from  ravenous 
wolves,)  because,  truly,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine  was  a  rebel  and  a  murderer.4 

4    This  is  said  upon  the  supposition  that  the  story  was  true  which  charged 


ENGLISH  TOLERATION.  209 

Such  is  the  effect  of  the  perversion  of  history,  by  those  who, 
for  the  same  nefarious  purposes,  have  perverted  every  other 
part  of  learning.  But  those  who  will  stand  upon  that  elevation 
of  reason  which  places  centuries  under  our  eye,  and  brings 
things  to  the  true  point  of  comparison,  which  obscures  little 
names,  and  effaces  the  colours  of  little  parties,  and  to  which 
nothing  can  ascend  but  the  spirit  and  moral  quality  of  human 
actions,  will  say  to  the  teachers  of  the  Palais'Royal, —  The  Car- 
dinal of  Lorraine  was  the  murderer  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
you  have  the  glory  of  being  the  murderers  in  the  eighteenth ; 
and  this  is  the  only  diiYeronce  between  you.  But  history  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  better  understood,  and  better  employed, 
will,  I  trust,  teach  a  civilized  posterity  to  abhor  the  misdeeds  of 
both  these  barbarous  ages.  It  will  teach  future  priests  and 
magistrates  not  to  retaliate,  upon  the  speculative  and  inactive 
atheists  of  future  times,  the  enormities  committed  by  the  pres- 
ent practical  zealots  and  furious  fanatics  of  that^wretched  error, 
which,  in  its  quiescent  state,  is  more  than  punished,  whenever 
it  is  embraced.  It  will  teach  posterity  not  to  make  war  upon 
cit  her  religion  or  philosophy,  for  the  abuse  which  the  hypocrites 
of  both  have  made  of  the  two  most  valuable  blessings  conferred 
upon  us  by  the  bounty  of  the  universal  Patron,  who  in  all 
things  eminently  favours  and  protects  the  race  of  man.—  Ecflec- 
ticns,  &c. 


ENGLISH  TOLERATION". 

THOSE  of  you,  who  have  robbed  the  clergy,  think  that  they 
shall  easily  reconcile  their  conduct  to  all  Protestant  nations ; 
Idealise  the  clergy  whom  they  have  thus  plundered,  degraded, 
and  given  over  to  mockery  and  scorn,  are  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic '  h;it  is,  of  their  own  pretended  persuasion.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  some  miserable  bigots  will  be  found  here,  as  well  as  else- 
where, who  half  sects  and  parties  different  from  their  own, 
more  than  they  love  the  substance  of  religion;  and  who  are 
angry  with  those  who  differ  from  them  in  their  particular 
plans  and  .systems,  than  displeased  with  those  who  attack  the 
foundation  of  our  common  hope.  These  men  will  write  and 
s]).-:ik  on  the  subject  in  the  manner  that  is  to  be  expected  from 
(heir  temper  and  character.  Bui  net  says  that,  when  he  was  in 
.France,  in  the  year  1C83,  "the  method  which  carried  over  the 

•liual  of  Lorraine  with  instigating  the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre:  but  in 
lift  the  Cardinal  had  nothing  to  do  with  that  massacre,  nor  was  he  in  France  at 
tlie  time. 


210  BURKE. 

men  of  the  finest  parts  to  Popery  was  this, — they  brought 
themselves  to  doubt  of  the  whole  Christian  religion.  When 
that  was  onco  done,  it  seemed  a  more  indifferent  thing  of  what 
side  or  form  they  continued  outwardly."  If  this  was  then  the 
ecclesiastical  policy  of  France,  it  is  what  they  have  since  but  too 
much  reason  to  repent  of.  They  preferred  atheism  to  a  form 
of  religion  not  agreeable  to  their  ideas.  They  succeeded  in  de- 
stroying that  form ;  and  atheism  has  succeeded  in  destroying^ 
them.  I  can  readily  give  credit  to  Burnet's  story ;  because  I 
have  observed  too  much  of  a  similar  spirit  (for  a  little  of  it  is 
"much  too  much")  amongst  ourselves.  The  humour,  however, 
is  not  general. 

The  teachers  who  reformed  our  religion  in  England  bore  no 
sort  of  resemblance  to  your  present  reforming  doctors  in  Paris. 
Perhaps  they  were  (like  those  whom  they  opposed)  rather  more 
than  could  be  wished  under  the  influence  of  a  party  spirit ;  but 
they  were  more  sincere  believers  ;  men  of  the  most  fervent  and 
exalted  piety ;  ready  to  die  (as  some  of  them  did  die)  like  true 
heroes  in  defence  of  their  particular  ideas  of  Christianity ;  as 
they  would  with  equal  fortitude,  and  more  cheerfully,  for  that 
stock  of  general  truth,  for  the  branches  of  which  they  con- 
tended with  their  blood.  These  men  would  have  disavowed 
witli  horror  those  wretches  who  claimed  a  fellowship  with  them 
upon  no  other  titles  than  those  of  their  having  pillaged  the  per- 
sons with  whom  they  maintained  controversies,  and  their  hav- 
ing despised  the  common  religion,  for  the  purity  of  which  they 
exerted  themselves  with  a  zeal,  which  unequivocally  bespoke 
their  highest  reverence  for  the  substance  of  that  system  which 
they  wished  to  reform.  Many  of  their  descendants  have  re- 
tnined  the  same  zeal,  but  (as  less  engaged  in  conflict)  with  more 
moderation.  They  do  not  forget  that  justice  and  mercy  are 
substantial  parts  of  religion.  Impious  men  do  not  recom- 
mend themselves  to  their  communion  by  iniquity  and  cruelty 
towards  any  description  of  their  fellow-creatures. 

We  hear  these  new  teachers  continually  boasting  of  their 
spirit  of  toleration.  That  those  persons  should  tolerate  all 
opinions,  who  think  none  to  be  of  estimation,  is  a  matter  of 
small  merit.  Equal  neglect  is  not  impartial  kindness.  The 
species  of  benevolence,  which  arises  from  contempt^  is  no  true 
charity.  There  are  in  England  abundance  of  men  who  tolerate 
in  the  true  spirit  of  toleration.  They  think  the  dogmas  of  relig- 
ion, though  in  different  degrees,  are  all  of  moment ;  and  that 
amongst  them  there  is,  as  amongst  all  things  of  value,  a  just 
ground  of  preference.  They  favour,  therefore,  and  they  toler- 
ate. They  tolerate,  not  because  they  despise  opinions,  but 
because  they  respect  justice.  They  would  reverently  and  affec- 


HOW  A  WISE  STATESMAN  PROCEEDS.  21 L 

tionately  protect  all  religions,  because  they  love  and  venerate 
the  great  principle  upon  which  they  all  agree,  and  the  great  ob- 
ject to  which  they  are  all  directed.  They  begin  more  and  more 
plainly  to  discern  that  we  have  all  a  common  cause,  as  against 
a  common  enemy.  They  will  not  be  so  misled  by  the  spirit  of 
faction,  as  iiot  to  distinguish  what  is  done  in  favour  of  their 
subdivision  from  those  acts  of  hostility  which,  through  some 
particular  description,  are  aimed  at  the  whole  corps,  in  which 
they  themselves,  under  another  denomination,  are  included. 
It  is  impossible  for  me  to  say  what  may  be  the  character  of 
every  description  of  men  amongst  us.  But  I  speak  for  the 
greater  part ;  and  for  them,  I  must  tell  you,  that  sacrilege  is  no 
part  of  their  doctrine  of  good  works ;  that,  so  far  from  calling 
you  into  their  fellowship  on  such  title,  if  your  professors  are 
admitted  to  their  communion,  they  must  carefully  conceal  their 
doctrine  of  the  lawfulness  of  the  proscription  of  innocent  men  ; 
and  that  they  must  make  restitution  of  all  stolen  goods  what- 
soever. Till  then  they  are  none  of  ours. — Reflections,  &c. 


« 


HOW  A  WISE  STATESMAN  PROCEEDS. 

THERE  are  moments  in  the  fortune  of  States,  when  particular 
men  are  called  to  make  improvements  by  great  mental  exertion. 
In  those  moments,  even  when  they  seem  to  enjoy  the  confi- 
dence of  their  prince  and  country,  and  to  be  invested  with  full 
authority,  they  have  not  always  apt  instruments.  A  politician, 
to  do  great  things,  looks  for  a  power,  what  our  workmen  call  a 
purcfiase ;  and  if  he  finds  that  power,  in  politics  as  in  mechan- 
ics, lie  cannot  be  at  a  loss  to  apply  it.  In  the  monastic  institu- 

ons,  in  my  opinion,  was  found  a  great  power  for  the  mechanism 
political  benevolence.  There  were  revenues  with  a  public 
direction;  there  were  men  wholly  set  apart  and  dedicated  to 
public  purposes,  without  any  other  than  public  ties  and  public 
principles  ;  men  without  the  possibility  of  converting  the  estate 
of  the  community  into  a  private  fortune  ;  men  denied  to  self- 
interests,  whose  avarice  is  for  some  community;  men  to  whom 
personal  poverty  is  honour,  and  implicit  obedience  stands  in 
the  place  of  freedom.  In  vain  shall  a  man  look  to  the  possi- 
bility of  making  such  things  when  he  wants  them.  The  winds 
blow  as  they  list.  These  institutions  are  the  products  of  enthu- 
siasm ;  they  are  the  instruments  of  wisdom.  Wisdom  cannot 
create  materials ;  they  are  the  gifts  of  Nature  or  of  chance  ; 
her  pride  is  in  the  use.  The  perennial  existence  of  bodies  cor- 


212  BURKE. 

porate  and  their  fortunes  are  things  particularly  suited  to  a 
man  who  has  long  views  ;  who  meditates  designs  that  require 
time  in  fashioning,  and  which  propose  duration  when  they  are 
accomplished.  He  is  not  deserving  to  rank  high,  or  even  to  be 
mentioned  in  the  order  of  great  statesmen,  who,  having  ob- 
tained the  command  and  direction  of  such  a  power  as  existed  in 
the  wealth,  the  discipline,  and  the  habits  of  such  corporations 
as  those  which  you  have  rashly  destroyed,  cannot  find  any  way 
of  converting  it  to  the  great  and  lasting  benefit  of  his  country. 
On  the  view  of  this  subject,  a  thousand  uses  suggest  themselves 
to  a  contriving  mind.  To  destroy  any  power,  growing  wild 
from  the  rank  productive  force  of  the  human  mind,  is  almost 
tantamount,  in  the  moral  world,  to  the  destruction  of  the  ap- 
parently active  properties  of  bodies  in  the  material.  It  would 
be  like  the  attempt  to  destroy  (if  it  were  in  our  competence  to 
destroy)  the  expansive  force  of  fixed  air  in  nitre,  or  the  power 
of  steam,  or  of  electricitj",  or  of  magnetism.  These  energies 
always  existed  in  Nature,  and  they  were  always  discernible. 
They  seemed,  some  of  them  unserviceable,  some  noxious,  some 
no  better  than  a  sport  to  children  ;  until  contemplative  ability, 
combining  with  practic  skill,  tamed  their  wild  nature,  subdued 
them  to  use,  and  rendered  them  at  once  the  most  powerful  and 
the  most  tractable  agents,  in  subservience  to  the  great  views 
and  designs  of  men.  Did  fifty  thousand  persons,  whose  mental 
and  whose  bodily  labour  you  might  direct,  and  so  many  hun- 
dred thousand  a  year  of  a  revenue,  which  was  neither  lazy  nor 
superstitious,  appear  too  big  for  your  abilities  to  wield?  Had 
you  no  way  of  using  the  men,  but  by  converting  monks  into  pen- 
sioners ?  Had  you  no  way  of  turning  the  revenue  to  account, 
but  through  the  improvident  resource  of  a  spendthrift  sale? 
If  you  were  thus  destitute  of  mental  funds,  the  proceeding  is  in 
its  natural  course.  Your  politicians  do  not  understand  their 
trade  ;  and  therefore  they  sell  their  tools. 

But  the  institutions  savour  of  superstition  in  their  very 
principle  ;  and  they  nourish  it  by  a  permanent  and  standing  in- 
fluence? This  I  do  not  mean  to  dispute  ;  but  this  ought  not  to 
hinder  you  from  deriving  from  superstition  itself  any  resource* 
which  may  thence  be  furnished  for  the  public  advantage.  You 
derivo  benefits  from  many  dispositions  and  many  passions  of 
the  human  mind,  which  arc  of  as  doubtful  a  colour,  in  the  moral 
eye,  as  superstition  itself.  It  was  your  business  to  correct  and 
mitigate  every  thing  which  was  noxious  in  this  passion,  as  in  all 
the  passions.  But  is  superstition  the  greatest  of  all  possible 
vices  ?  In  its  possible  excess  I  think  it  becomes  a  very  great 
evil.  It  is,  however,  a  moral  subject ;  and  of  course  admits  of 
all  degrees  and  all  modifications.  Superstition  is  the  religion  of 


TRUE   PRINCIPLES   OF   REFORM.  213 

feeble  minds  ;  and  they  must  be  tolerated  in  an  intermixture 
of  it,  in  some  trifling  or  some  enthusiastic  shape  or  other,  else 
you  will  deprive  weak  minds  of  a  resource  found  necessary  to 
the  strongest.  The  body  of  all  true  religion  consists,  to  be  sure, 
in  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  Sovereign  of  the  world ;  in  a 
confidence  in  His  declarations,  and  an  imitation  of  Ilis  perfec- 
tions. The  rest  is  our  own.  It  may  be  prejudicial  to  the  great 
end ;  it  may  be  auxiliary.  Wise  men,  who  as  such  are  not 
fiilniirci's,  (not  admirers  at  least  of  the  Muncra  Terrce,)  are  not 
violently  attached  to  these  things,  nor  do  they  violently  hate 
them.  Wisdom  is  not  the  most  severe  corrector  of  folly.  They 
are  the  rival  follies,  which  mutually  wage  so  unrelenting  a  war ; 
and  which  make  so  cruel  a  use  of  their  advantages,  as  they  can 
happen  to  engage  the  immoderate  vulgar,  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  in  their  quarrels.  Prudence  would  be  neuter:  but  if,  in 
the  contention  between  fond  attachment  and  tierce  antipathy 
concerning  things  in  their  nature  not  made  to  produce  such 
heats,  a  prudent  man  were  obliged  to  make  a  choice  of  what 
errors  and  excesses  of  enthusiasm  he  would  condemn  or  bear, 
perhaps  he  would  think  the  superstition  which  builds  to  be 
more  tolerable  than  that  which  demolishes  ;  that  which  adorns 
a  country,  than  that  which  deforms  it;  that  which  endows, 
than  that  which  plunders  ;  that  which  disposes  to  mistaken  be- 
neficence, than  that  which  stimulates  to  real  injustice;  that 
which  leads  a  man  to  refuse  to  himself  lawful  pleasures,  than 
that  which  snatches  from  others  the  scanty  subsistence  of  their 
self-denial.  Such,  I  think,  is  very  nearly  the  state  of  the  ques- 
tion between  the  ancient  founders  of  monkish  superstition,  and 
the  superstition  of  the  pretended  philosophers  of  the  hour.— 
Reflections,  &c. 


TRUE  PRINCIPLES  OF  REFORM. 

I  AM  convinced  that  there  are  men  of  considerable  parts 
among  the  popular  leaders  in  the  National  Assembly.  Some  of 
them  display  eloquence  in  their  speeches  and  their  writings. 
This  cannot  be  without  powerful  and  cultivated  talents.  But 
eloquence  may  exist  without  a  proportionable  degree  of  wis- 
dom. When  I  speak  of  ability,  I  am  obliged  to  distinguish. 
What  they  have  done  towards  the  support  of  their  system  be- 
speak.s  no  ordinary  men.  In  the  system  itself,  taken  as  the 
scheme  of  a  republic  constructed  for  procuring  the  prosperity 
and  security  of  the  citizen,  and  for  promoting  the  strength  and 
grandeur  of  the  State,  I  confess  myself  unable  to  find  out  any 


214  BURKE. 

thing  which  displays,  in  a  single  instance,  the  work  of  a  com- 
prehensive and  disposing  mind,  or  even  the  provisions  of  a 
vulgar  prudence.  Their  purpose  everywhere  seems  to  have 
been  to  evade  and  slip  aside  from  difficulty.  This  it  has  been 
the  glory  of  the  great  masters  in  all  the  arts  to  confront,  and  to 
overcome  ;  and,  when  they  had  overcome  the  first  difficulty,  to 
turn  it  into  an  instrument  for  new  conquests  over  new  difficul- 
ties ;  thus  to  enable  them  to  extend  the  empire  of  their  science  ; 
and  even  to  push  forward,  beyond  the  reach  of  their  original 
thoughts,  the  landmarks  of  the  human  understanding  itself. 
Difficulty  is  a  severe  instructor,  set  over  us  by  the  supreme  or- 
dinance of  a  parental  Guardian  and  Legislator,  who  knows  us 
better  than  we  know  ourselves,  as  He  loves  us  better  too.  Pater 
ipsc  colcndi  haudfacilem  csse  viam  voluit.  He  that  wrestles  with 
us  strengthens  our  nerves,  and  sharpens  our  skill.  Our  antago- 
nist is  our  helper.  This  amicable  conflict  with  difficulty  obliges 
us  to  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  our  object,  and  compels  us 
to  consider  it  in  all  its  relations.  It  will  not  suffer  us  to  be 
superficial.  It  is  the  want  of  nerves  of  understanding  for  such 
a  task,  it  is  the  degenerate  fondness  for  tricking  short-cuts,  and 
little  fallacious  facilities,  that  has  in  so  many  parts  of  the  world 
created  governments  with  arbitrary  powers.  They  created  the 
late  arbitrary  monarchy  of  France.  They  have  created  the  ar- 
bitrary republic  of  Paris.  With  them  defects  in  wisdom  are  to 
be  supplied  by  the  plenitude  of  force.  They  get  nothing  by  it. 
Commencing  their  labours  on  a  principle  of  sloth,  they  have  the 
common  fortune  of  slothful  men.  The  difficulties,  which  they 
rather  had  eluded  than  escaped,  meet  them  again  in  their 
course  ;  they  multiply  and  thicken  on  them  ;  they  arc  involved, 
through  a  labyrinth  of  confused  detail,  in  an  industry  without 
limit,  and  without  direction ;  and,  in  conclusion,  the  whole  of 
their  work  becomes  feeble,  vicious,  and  insecure. 

It  is  this  inability  to  wrestle  with  difficulty  which  has  obliged 
the  arbitrary  Assembly  of  France  to  commence  their  schemes 
of  reform  with  abolition  and  total  destruction.  But  is  it  in 
destroying  and  pulling  down  that  skill  is  displayed?  Your 
mob  can  do  this  as  well  at  least  as  your  assemblies.  The  shal- 
lowest understanding,  the  rudest  hand,  is  more  than  equal  to 
that  task.  Rage  and  frenzy  will  pull  down  more  in  half  an 
hour,  than  prudence,  deliberation,  and  foresight  can  build  up 
in  a  hundred  years.  The  errors  and  defects  of  old  establish- 
ments are  visible  and  palpable.  It  calls  for  little  ability  to  point 
them  out ;  and,  where  absolute  power  is  given,  it  requires  but  a 
word  wholly  to  abolish  the  vice  and  the  establishment  together. 
The  same  lazy  but  restless  disposition,  which  loves  sloth  and 
hates  quiet,  directs  the  politicians,  when  they  coine  to  work  for 


TRUE   PRINCIPLES   OF   REFORM.  215 

supplying  the  place  of  what  they  have  destroyed.  To  make 
every  thing  the  reverse  of  what  they  have  seen,  is  quite  as  easy 
as  to  destroy.  Xo  difficulties  occur  in  what  has  never  been 
tried.  Criticism  is  almost  baffled  in  discovering  the  defects  of 
what  has  not  existed  ;  and  eager  enthusiasm  and  cheating  hope 
have  all  the  wide  field  of  imagination,  in  which  they  may  expa- 
tiate with  little  or  no  opposition. 

At  once  to  preserve  and  to  reform  is  quite  another  thing. 
When  the  useful  parts  of  an  old  establishment  are  kept,  and 
what  is  superadded  is  to  be  fitted  to  what  is  retained,  a  vigor- 
ous mind,  steady,  persevering  attention,  various  powers  of 
comparison  and  combination,  and  the  resources  of  an  under- 
standing fruitful  in  expedients,  are  to  be  exercised ;  they  are 
to  be  exercised  in  a  continued  conflict  with  the  combined  force 
of  opposite  vices,  with  the-  obstinacy  that  rejects  all  improve- 
ment, and  the  levity  that  is  fatigued  and  disgusted  with  every 
thing  of  which  it  is  in  possession.  But  you  may  object,— "A 
process  of  this  kind  is  slow.  It  is  not  fit  for  an  assembly, 
which  glories  in  performing  in  a  few  months  the  work  of  ages. 
Such  a  mode  of  reforming,  possibly,  might  take  up  many 
years."  Without  question  it  might ;  and  it  ought.  It  is  one  of 
the  excellences  of  a  method  in  which  time  is  amongst  the  as- 
sistants, that  its  operation  is  slow,  and  in  some  cases  almost 
imperceptible.  If  circumspection  and  caution  are  a  part  of 
wisdom  when  we  work  only  upon  inanimate  matter,  surely  they 
become  a  part  of  duty  too,  when  the  subject  of  our  demolition 
and  construction  is  not  brick  and  timber,  but  sentient  beings, 
by  the  sudden  alteration  of  whose  state,  condition,  and  habits, 
multitudes  may  be  rendered  miserable.  But  it  seems  as  if  it 
were  the  prevalent  opinion  in  Paris,  that  an  unfeeling  heart 
and  an  umloubting  conlidence  are  the  sole  qualifications  for  a 
perfect  legislator.  Far  different  are  my  ideas  of  that  high 
ollice.  The  true  lawgiver  ought  to  have  a  heart  full  of  sensi- 
bility. He  ought  to  love  and  respect  his  kind,  and  to  fear 
himself.  It  may  be  allowed  to  his  temperament  to  catch  his 
ultimate  object  with  an  intuitive  glance  ;  but  his  movements 
towards  it  ought  to  be  deliberate.  Political  arrangement,  as  it 
is  a  work  for  social  ends,  is  to  be  only  wrought  by  social  means. 
There  mind  must  conspire  with  mind.  Time  is  required  to 
produce  that  union  of  minds  which  alone  can  produce  all  the 
good  we  aim  at.  Our  patience  will  achieve  more  than  our 
force.  If  I  might  venture  to  appeal  to  what  is  so  much  out  of 
fashion  in  Paris,  I  mean  to  experience,  I  should  tell  you,  that 
in  my  course  I  have  known,  and,  according  to  my  measure, 
have  co-operated  with  great  men  ;  and  I  have  never  yet  seen 
any  plan  which  has  not  been  mended  by  the  observations  of 


216  BURKE. 

those  who  were  much  inferior  in  understanding  to  the  person 
who  took  the  lead  in  the  business.  By  a  slow  but  well-sus- 
tained progress,  the  effect  of  each  step  is  -watched  ;  the  good  or 
ill  success  of  the  first  gives  light  to  us  in  the  second;  and  so, 
from  light  to  light,  we  are  conducted  with  safety  through  the 
whole  series.  We  see  that  the  parts  of  the  system  do  not 
clash.  The  evils  latent  in  the  most  promising  contrivances  are 
provided  for  as  they  arise.  One  advantage  is  as  little  as  possi- 
ble sacrificed  to  another.  "We  compensate,  we  reconcile,  we 
balance.  We  are  enabled  to  unite  into  a  consistent  whole  the 
various  anomalies  and  contending  principles  that  are  found  in 
the  minds  and  affairs  of  men.  From  hence  arises,  not  an  ex- 
cellence in  simplicity,  but  one  far  superior,  an  excellence  in 
composition.  Where  the  great  interests  of  mankind  are  con- 
cerned through  a  long  succession  of  generations,  that  succes- 
sion ought  to  be  admitted  to  some  share  in  the  counsels 
which  are  so  deeply  to  affect  them.  If  justice  requires  this,  the 
work  itself  requires  the  aid  of  more  minds  than  one  age  can 
furnish.  It  is  from  this  view  of  things  that  the  host  legislators 
have  been  often  satisfied  with  the  establishment  of  some  sure, 
solid,  and  ruling  principle  in  government;  a  power  like  that 
which  some  of  the  philosophers  have  called  a  plastic  nature  ; 
and,  having  fixed  the  principle,  they  have  left  it  afterwards  to 
its  own  operation. 

To  proceed  in  this  manner,,  that  is,  to  proceed  with  a  presiding 
principle,  and  a  prolific  energy,  is  with  me  the  criterion  of  pro- 
found wisdom.  What  your  politicians  think  the  marks  of  a 
bold,  hardy  genius,  are  only  proofs  of  a  deplorable  want  of  abil- 
ity. By  their  violent  haste  and  their  defiance  of  the  processes 
of  Nature,  they  are  delivered  over  blindly  to  every  projector 
and  adventurer,  to  every  alchymist  and  empiric.  They  despaii 
of  turning  to  account  any  thing  that  is  common.  Diet  is  not1  - 
ing  in  their  system  of  remedy.  The  worst  of  it  is,  that  this 
their  despair  of  curing  common  distempers  by  regular  methods 
arises  not  only  from  defect  of  comprehension,  but,  I  fear,  from 
some  malignity  of  disposition.  Your  legislators  seem  to  have 
taken  their  opinions  of  all  professions,  ranks,  and  ollices,  from 
the  declamations  and  buffooneries  of  satirists,  who  would  them- 
selves be  astonished  if  they  were  held  to  the  letter  of  their  own 
descriptions.  By  listening  only  to  these,  your  leaders  regard 
all  things  only  on  the  side  of  their  vices  and  faults,  and  view 
those  vices  and  faults  under  every  colour  of  exaggeration.  It 
is  undoubtedly  true,  though  it  may  seem  paradoxical,  that,  in 
general,  those  who  are  habitually  employed  in  finding  and  dis- 
playing faults  arc  unqualified  for  the  work  of  reformation  ; 
because  their  minds  are  not  only  unfurnished  with  patterns  of 


FANATICISM   OF   LIBERTY.  217 

the  fair  and  good,  but  by  habit  they  come  to  take  no  delight  in 
the  contemplation  of  those  things.  13y  hating  vices  too  much, 
they  come  to  love  men  too  little.  It  is  therefore  not  wonderful 
that  they  should  be  indisposed  and  unable  to  serve  them. 
From  hence  arises  the  complexional  disposition  of  some  of  your 
guides  to  pull  every  thing  in  pieces.  At  this  malicious  game 
they  display  the  whole  of  their  quadrimanoiis  activity.  As  to 
the  rest,  the  paradoxes  of  eloquent  writers,  brought  forth 
purely  as  a  sport  of  fancy,  to  try  their  talents,  to  rouse  atten- 
tion and  excite  surprise,  are  taken  up  by  these  gentlemen,  not 
in  the  spirit  of  the  original  authors,  as  means  of  cultivating 
their  taste  and  improving  their  style.  These  paradoxes  become 
with  them  serious  grounds  of  action,  upon  which  they  proceed 
in  regulating  the  most  important  concerns  of  the  State.  Cicero 
ludicrously  describes  Cato  as  endeavouring  to  act,  in  the  com- 
monwealth, upon  the  school  paradoxes  which  exercised  the 
wits  of  the  junior  students  in  the  Stoic  philosophy.  If  this  was 
true  of  Cato,  these  gentlemen  copy  after  him  in  the  manner  of 
some  persons  who  lived  about  his  time,— pede  nmlo  Catoncm. 
Mr.  Hume  told  me  that  he  had  from  Rousseau  himself  the  se- 
cret  of  his  principles  of  composition.  That  acute  though  eccen- 
tric observer  had  perceived  that,  to  strike  and  interest  the 
public,  the  marvellous  must  be  produced  ;  that  the  marvellous 
of  the  heathen  mythology  had  long  since  lost  its  effects;  that 
giants,  magiciaps,  fairies,  and  heroes  of  romance  which  suc- 
ceeded, had  exhausted  the  portion  of  credulity  which  belonged 
to  their  age  •  that  now  nothing  was  left  to  the  writer  but  that 
species  of  'he  marvellous  which  might  still  be  produced,  and 
with  as  Lr  eat  an  effect  as  ever,  though  in  another  way  ;  that  is, 
lite  m:r  vellous  in  life,  in  manners,  in  characters,  and  in  extraor- 
dinary situations,  giving  rise  to  new  and  unlooked-for  strokes 
in  politics  and  morals.  I  believe  that,  were  Rousseau  alive,  and 
i-i  cue  of  his  lucid  intervals,  he  would  be  shocked  at  the  prac- 
tical fren/.y  of  his  scholars,  who  in  their  paradoxes  arc  servile 
imitators,  and  even  in  their  incredulity  discover  an  implicit 
faith.—  Reflections,  &c. 


FANATICISM  OF  LIBERTY. 

Tin:  effects  of  the  incapacity  shown  by  the  popular  leaders  in 
all  the  great  members  of  UK;  commonwealth  are  to  be  covered 
with  tin;  "all-atoning  iuftne"  of  liberty.  In  some  people  I  see 
great  liberty  indued  ;  in  many,  if  not  in  the  most,  an  oppressive, 


218  BURKE. 

degrading  servitude.  But  what  is  liberty  without  wisdom  and 
without  virtue  ?  It  is  the  greatest  of  all  possible  evils  ;  for  it  is 
folly,  vice,  and  madness,  without  tuition  or  restraint.  Those 
who  know  what  virtuous  liberty  is,  cannot  bear  to  see  it  dis- 
graced by  incapable  heads,  on  account  of  their  having  high- 
sounding  words  in  their  mouths.  Grand,  swelling  sentiments 
of  liberty  I  am  sure  I  do  not  despise.  They  warm  the  heart ; 
they  enlarge  and  liberalize  our  minds  ;  they  animate  our  cour- 
age in  a  time  of  conflict.  Old  as  I  am,  I  read  the  line  raptures 
of  Lucan  and  Corneille  with  pleasure.  Neither  do  I  wholly 
condemn  the  little  arts  and  devices  of  popularity.  They  facili- 
tate the  carrying  of  many  points  of  moment ;  they  keep  the 
people  together ;  they  refresh  the  mind  in  its  exertions ;  and 
they  diffuse  occasional  gayety  over  the  severe  brow  of  moral 
freedom.  Every  politician  ought  to  sacrifice  to  the  graces,  and 
to  join  compliance  with  reason.  But  in  such  an  undertaking  as 
that  in  France,  all  these  subsidiary  sentiments  and  artifices  are 
of  little  avail.  To  make  a  government  requires  no  great  pru- 
dence. Settle  the  seat  of  power ;  teach  obedience  ;  and  the 
work  is  done.  To  give  freedom  is  still  more  easy.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  guide  ;  it  only  requires  to  let  go  the  rein.  But  to 
form  a,  free  government,  that  is,  to  temper  together  these  oppo- 
site elements  of  liberty  and  restraint  in  one  consistent  work, 
requires  much  thought,  deep  reflection,  a  sagacious,  powerful, 
and  combining  mind.  This  I  do  not  find  in  those  who  take  the 
lead  in  the  National  Assembly.  Perhaps  they  are  not  so  mis- 
erably deficient  as  they  appear.  I  rather  believe  it.  It  would 
put  them  below  the  common  level  of  human  understanding. 
But  when  the  leaders  choose  to  make  themselves  bidders  at  an 
auction  of  popularity,  their  talents,  in  the  construction  of  the 
State,  will  be  of  no  service.  They  will  become  flatterers 
instead  of  legislators ;  the  instruments,  not  the  guides,  of  the 
people.  If  any  of  them  should  happen  to  propose  a  scheme  of 
liberty,  soberly  limited,  and  defined  with  proper  qualifications, 
he  will  be  immediately  outbid  by  his  competitors,  who  will  pro- 
duce something  more  splendidly  popular.  Suspicions  will  be 
raised  of  his  fidelity  to  his  cause.  Moderation  will  be  stigma- 
tized as  the  virtue  of  cowards ;  and  compromise  as  the  pru- 
dence of  traitors ;  until,  in  hopes  of  preserving  the  credit 
which  may  enable  him  to  temper  and  moderate,  on  some  occa- 
sions, the  popular  leader  is  obliged  to  become  active  in  propa- 
gating doctrines,  and  establishing  powers,  that  will  afterwards 
defeat  any  sober  purpose  at  which  he  ultimately  might  have 
aimed. — Jiejlcctions,  &c. 


THE   ETHICS  OP  VANITY.  219 


THE  ETHICS  OF  VANITY.5 

THOSE  who  have  made  the  exhibition  of  the  14th  of  July  are 
capable  of  every  evil.0  They  do  not  commit  crimes  for  their 
designs  ;  but  they  form  designs  that  they  may  commit  crimes. 
It  is  not  their  necessity,  but  their  nature,  that  impels  them. 
They  are  modern  philosophers ;  which  when  you  say  of  them 
you  express  every  thing  that  is  ignoble,  savage,  and  hard- 
hearted. 

Besides  the  sure  tokens  which  are  given  by  the  spirit  of  their 
particular  arrangements,  there  are  some  characteristic  linea- 
ments in  the  general  policy  of  your  tumultuous  despotism, 
which,  in  my  opinion,  indicate,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  no  revolu- 
tion whatsoever  in  their  (lixpoxition  is  to  be  expected.  I  mean 
their  scheme  of  educating  the  rising  generation,  the  principles 
which  they  intend  to  instil,  and  the  sympatliTeS^wliich  they 
wish  to  form  in  the  mind,  at  the  season  in  which  it  is  the 
susceptible.  Instead  of  forming  their  young  minds  to  that  do- 
cility, to  that  modesty,  which  are  the  grace  and  charm  of  youth, 
to  an  admiration  of  famous  examples,  and  to  an  averseness 
to  any  thing  which  approaches  to  pride,  petulance,  and  self- 
conceit,  (distempers  to  which  that  time  of  life  is  of  itself  suffi- 
ciently liable,)  they  artificially  foment  these  evil  dispositions, 
and  even  form  them  into  springs  of  action.  Nothing  ought  to 
be  more  weighed  than  the  nature  of  books  recommended  by 
public  authority.  So  recommended,  they  soon  form  the  char- 
acter of  the  age.  Uncertain  indeed  is  the  efficacy,  limited  in- 
deed is  the  extent,  of  a  virtuous  institution.  But  if  education 
takes  in  vice  as  any  part  of  its  system,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that 
it  will  operate  with  abundant  energy,  and  to  an  extent  indefi- 
nite. The  magistrate,  who  in  favour  of  freedom  thinks  himself 
obliged  to  suffer  all  sorts  of  publications,  is  under  a  stricter 

5  The  paper  which  furnishes  the  pages  under  this  heading  was  published  in 
February,  1701 ;  its  full  title  being,  "  A  Letter  to  a  Member  of  the  National  As- 
sembly;  in  Answer  to  some  Objections  to  his  Book  on  French  Affairs.    1791." 
The  "  book  "  here  referred  to  is  Reflections,  <f  c. 

6  The  occasion  hero  pointed  out  was  the  first  anniversary  of  the  destruction 
of  the  Jiastilc, — an  event  very  proper  indeed  to  be  celebrated,  but  not  with 
such  circumstances  of  cruel  mockery  to  the  fallen  and  helpless  as  those  dread- 
ful creatures  chose  to  employ.    In  the  paragraph  preceding  the  one  which  here 
stands  first,  JJurkc  describes  their  doings  as  follows  :  "  They  constructed  a  vast 
amphitheatre  in  which  they  raised  a  species  of  pillory.    On  this  pillory  they  set 
their  King  and  Queen,  with  an  insulting  figure  over  their  heads.    There  they 
exposed  these  objects  of  pity  and  respect  to  all  good  minds  to  the  derision  of  an 
unthinking  and  unprincipled  multitude,  degenerated  even  from  the  versatile 
tenderness  which  marks  the  irregular  and  capricious  feelings  of  the  populace." 


220  BURKE. 

duty  than  any  other  well  to  consider  what  sort  of  writers  he 
shall  authorize ;  and  shall  recommend  by  the  strongest  of  all 
sanctions,  that  is,  by  public  honours  and  rewards.  He  ought  to 
be  cautious  how  he  recommends  authors  of  mixed  or  ambigu- 
ous morality.  He  ought  to  be  fearful  of  putting  into  the  hands 
of  youth  writers  indulgent  to  the  peculiarities  of  their  own  com- 
plexion, lest  they  should  teach  the  humours  of  the  professor, 
rather  than  the  principles  of  the  science.  He  ought,  above  all, 
to  be  cautious  in  recommending  any  writer  who  has  carried 
marks  of  a  deranged  understanding ;  for  where  there  is  no 
sound  reason  there  can  be  no  real  virtue  ;  and  madness  is  ever 
vicious  and  malignant. 

The  Assembly  proceeds  on  maxims  the  very  reverse  of  these. 
The  Assembly  recommends  to  its  youth  a  study  of  the  bold  ex- 
perimenters of  morality.  Everybody  knows  that  there  is  a 
great  dispute  amongst  their  leaders,  which  of  them  is  the  best 
resemblance  of  Rousseau.  In  truth,  they  all  resemble  him.  His 
blood  they  transfuse  into  their  minds  and  into  their  manners. 
Him  they  study  ;  him  they  meditate  ;  him  they  turn  over  in  all 
the  time  they  can  spare  from  the  laborious  mischief  of  the  day, 
or  the  debaucheries  of  the  night,  llousseau  is  their  canon  of 
holy  writ;  in  his  life  he  is  their  canon  of  Polydetus ;~  he  is 
their  standard  figure  of  perfection.  To  this  man  and  this  writer, 
as  a  pattern  to  authors  and  to  Frenchmen,  the  foundries  of 
Paris  are  now  running  for  statues,  with  the  kettles  of  their  poor 
and  the  bells  of  their  churches.  If  an  author  had  written  like  a 
great  genius  on  geometry,  though  his  practical  and  .speculative 
morals  were  vicious  in  the  extreme,  it  might  appear  that,  in 
voting  the  statue,  they  honoured  only  the  geometrician.  But 
Housseau  is  a  moralist,  or  he  is  nothing.  It  is  impossible, 
therefore,  putting  the  circumstances  together,  to  mistake  their 
design  in  choosing  the  author  with  whom  they  have  begun  to 
recommend  a  course  of  studies. 

Their  great  problem  is  to  iind  a  substitute  for  all  the  princi- 
ples which  hitherto  have  been  employed  to  regulate  the  human 
will  and  action.  They  find  dispositions  in  the  mind  of  such 
force  and  quality  as  may  fit  men,  far  better  than  the  old  mo- 
rality, for  the  purposes  of  such  a  State  as  theirs,  and  may  go 
much  further  in  supporting  their  power,  and  destroying  their 
enemies.  They  have  therefore  chosen  a  selfish,  llattering,  se- 
ductive, ostentatious  vice,  in  the  place  of  plain  duty.  True  1m- 

7  Polyclctus  was  a  statuary,  who  stood  at  the  head  of  the  school  of  Argos, 
and  was  considered  inferior  only  to  Phidias,  who  was  at  the  same  time  at  the 
he.Td  of  the  Athenian  school.  His  most  celebrated  work  was  a  .-tatm1  <>i  a 
Spear-bearer,  which  became  known  as  "  the  Canon,"  because  it  embodied  a  per- 
fect representation  of  the  ideal  of  the  human  iiguro. 


moi 


THE   ETHICS   OF   VAXITY.  221 

mility,  the  basis  of  the  Christian  system,  is  the  low  but  deep 
and  firm  foundation  of  all  real  virtue.  But  this,  as  very  painful 
in  the  practice,  and  little  imposing  in  the  appearance,  they  have 
totally  discarded.  Their  object  is  to  merge  all  natural  and  all 
social  sentiment  in  inordinate  vanity.  In  a  small  degree,  and 
conversant  in  little  things,  vanity  is  of  little  moment.  When 
full  grown,  it  is  the  worst  of  vices,  and  the  occasional  mimic  of 
them  all.  It  makes  the  whole  man  false.  It  leaves  nothing 
sincere  or  trustworthy  about  him.  His  best  qualities  are  poi- 
soned and  perverted  by  it,  and  operate  exactly  as  the  worst. 
When  your  lords  had  many  writers  as  immoral  as  the  object  of 
their  statue,  (such  as  Voltaire  and  others,)  they  chose  Rous- 
seau ;  because  in  him  that  peculiar  vice  which  they  wished  to 
erect  into  a  ruling  virtue  was  by  far  the  most  conspicuous. 

We  have  had  the  great  professor  and  founder  of  the  philoso- 
pli>i  «f  I'anltn  in  England.  As  I  had  good  opportunities  of  know- 
ing his  proceedings  almost  from  day  to  day,  he  left  no  doubt  on 
my  mind  that  he  entertained  no  principle,  either  to  influence  his 
heart  or  to  guide  his  understanding,  but  vanity.  With  this  A  -ice 
he  was  possessed  to  a  degree  little  short  of  madness.  It  is  from 
the  same  deranged,  eccentric  vanity,  that  this,  the  insane  Soc- 
rates of  the  National  Assembly,  was  impelled  to  publish  a  mad 
confession  of  his  mad  faults,  and  to  attempt  a  new  sort  of  glory 
from  bringing  hardily  to  light  the  obscure  and'  vulgar  vices, 
which  we  know  may  sometimes  be  blended  with  eminent  tal- 
ents, lie  has  not  observed  on  the  nature  of  vanity  who  does 
not  know  that  it  is  omnivorous;  that  it  has  no  choice  in  its 
food  ;  that  it  is  fond  to  talk  even  of  its  <>\vn  faults  and  vices,  as 
what  will  excite  surprise  and  draw  attention,  and  what  will  pass 
at  worM  for  openness  and  candour. 

It  was  this  abuse  and  perversion,  which  vanity  makes  even  of 
hypocrisy,  that  has  driven  IvotiN>e;ui  to  record  a  life  not  so 
much  as  chequered,  or  spotted  here  and  tin-re,  with  virtues,  or 
even  distinguished  by  a  single  good  action.  It  is  such  a  life  he 
chooses  to  offer  to  the  attention  of  mankind.  It  is  such  a  life 
that,  with  a  wild  defiance,  he  flings  in  the  face  of  his  Creator, 
whom  he  acknowledges  only  to  brave.  Your  Assembly,  know- 
ing how  much  more  powerful  example  is  found  than  precept, 
ha>  chosen  this  man  (by  his  own  account  without  a  single  virtue) 
for  a  model.  To  him  they  erect  their  first  statue.  From  him 
they  commence  their  series  of  honours  and  distinctions. 

It  is  that  new  invented  virtue,  which  your  masters  canonize, 
that  led  their  moral  hero  constantly  to  exhaust  the  stores  of  his 
powerful  rhetoric  in  the  expression  of  universal  benevolence ; 
whil-i  liis  heart  was  incapable  of  harbouring  one  spark  of  com- 
i  parental  affection.  Benevolence  to  the  whole  species,  and 


222  BURKE. 

want  of  feeling  for  every  individual  with  whom  the  professors 
come  in  contact,  form  the  character  of  the  new  philosophy. 
Setting  up  for  an  unsocial  independence,  this  their  hero  of  van- 
ity refuses  the  just  price  of  common  labour,  as  well  as  the 
tribute  which  opulence  owes  to  genius,  and  which,  when  paid, 
honours  the  giver  and  the  receiver ;  and  then  he  pleads  his 
beggary  as  an  excuse  for  his  crimes.  He  melts  with  tenderness 
for  those  only  who  touch  him  by  the  remotest  relation,  and 
then,  without  one  natural  pang,  casts  away,  as  a  sort  of  offal 
and  excrement,  the  spawn  of  his  disgustful  amours,  and  sends 
his  children  to  the  hospital  of  foundlings.  The  bear  loves,  licks, 
and  forms  her  young  ;  but  bears  are  not  philosophers.  Vanity, 
however,  finds  its  account  in  reversing  the  train  of  our  natural 
feelings.  Thousands  admire  the  sentimental  writer;  the  affec- 
tionate father  is  hardly  known  in  his  parish. 

Under  this  philosophic  instructor  in  the  ethics  of  vanity,  they 
have  attempted  in  France  a  regeneration  of  the  moral  constitu- 
tion of  man.  Statesmen  like  your  present  rulers  exist  by  every 
thing  which  is  spurious,  fictitious,  and  false  ;  by  every  thing 
which  takes  the  man  from  his  house,  and  sets  him  on  a  stage ; 
which  makes  him  up  an  artificial  creature,  with  painted,  theatric 
sentiments,  fit  to  be  seen  by  the  glare  of  candle-light,  and  formed 
to  be  contemplated  at  a  due  distance.  Vanity  is  too  apt  to  pre- 
vail in  all  of  us,  and  in  all  countries.  To  the  improvement  of 
Frenchmen  it  seems  not  absolutely  necessary  that  it  should  be 
taught  upon  system.  But  it  is  plain  that  the  present  rebellion  t 
was  its  legitimate  offspring,  and  it  is  piously  fed  by  that  rebel-' 
lion  with  a  daily  dole. 

If  the  system  of  institution  recommended  by  the  Assembly 
be  false  and  theatric,  it  is  because  their  system  of  government 
is  of  the  same  character.  To  that,  and  to  that  alone,  it  is 
strictly  conformable.  To  understand  either,  we  must  connect 
the  morals  with  the  politics  of  the  legislators.  Your  practical 
philosophers,  systematic  in  every  thing,  have  wisely  begun  at 
the  source.  As  the  relation  between  parents  and  children  is 
the  first  amongst  the  elements  of  vulgar,  natural  morality ; 
they  erect  statues  to  a  wild,  ferocious,  low-minded,  hard-heart i«d 
father,  of  fine  general  feelings  ;  a  lover  of  his  kind,  but  a  hater 
of  his  kindred.  Your  masters  reject  the  duties  of  this  vulgar 
relation,  as  contrary  to  liberty;  as  not  founded  in  the  social 
compact ;  and  not  binding  according  to  the  rights  of  men  ;  be- 
cause the  relation  is  not,  of  course,  the  result  of  free  election; 
never  so  on  the  side  of  the  children,  not  always  on  the  part  of 
the  parents. 

The  next  relation  which  they  regenerate  by  their  statues  to 
Rousseau,  is  that  which  is  next  in  sanctity  to  that  of  a  father. 


THE   ETHICS   OF  VANITY.  223 

They  differ  from  those  old-fashioned  thinkers  wlio  considered 
pedagogues  as  sober  and  venerable  characters,  and  allied  to  the 
parental.  The  moralists  of  the  dark  times  prcccptorcm  sancti 
rolucrc  parcntis  cssc  loco.9  In  this  age  of  light,  they  teach  the 
people  that  preceptors  ought  to  be  in  the  place  of  gallants. 
They  systematically  corrupt  a  very  corruptible  race,  (for  some 
time  a  growing  nuisance  amongst  you,)  a  set  of  pert,  petulant 
1  iterators,  to  whom,  instead  of  their  proper,  but  severe,  unos- 
tentatious duties,  they  assign  the  brilliant  part  of  men  of  wit 
and  pleasure,  of  gay,  young  military  sparks,  and  danglers  at 
toilets.  They  call  on  the  rising  generation  in  France  to  take  a 
sympathy  in  the  adventures  and  fortunes,  and  they  endeavour 
to  engage  their  sensibility  on  the  side,  of  pedagogues  who  be- 
tray the  most  awful  family  trusts,  and  vitiate  their  female 
pupils.  They  teach  the  people  that  the  debauchers  of  virgins, 
almost  in  the  arms  of  their  parents,  may  be  safe  inmates  in  the 
houses,  and  even  fit  guardians  of  the  honour,  of  those  husbands 
who  succeed  legally  to  the  office  which  the  young  literators  had 
pre-occupied,  without  asking  leave  of  law  or  conscience. 

Thus  they  dispose  of  all  the  family  relations  of  parents  and 
children,  husbands  and  wives.  Through  this  same  instructor, 
by  whom  they  corrupt  the  morals,  they  corrupt  the  taste.  Tasto 
and  elegance,  though  they  are  reckoned  only  among  the  smaller 
and  secondary  morals,  yet  are  of  no  mean  importance  in  the  reg- 
ulation of  life.  A  moral  taste  is  not  of  force  to  turn  vice  into 
virtue  ;  but  it  recommends  virtue  with  something  like  the  blan- 
dishments of  pleasure;  and  it  infinitely  abates  the  evils  of  vices. 
Rousseau,  a  writer  of  great  force  and  vivacity,  is  totally  desti- 
tute of  taste  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  Your  masters,  who  are 
liolars,  conceive  that  all  refinement  has  an  aristocratic 
character.  The  last  age  had  exhausted  all  its  powers  in  giving 
grace  and  nobleness  to  our  natural  appetites,  and  in  raising 
ier.1  into  a  higher  class  and  order  than  seemed  justly  to  belong 
them.  Through  Rousseau,  your  masters  are  resolved  to 
destroy  these  aristocratic  prejudices.  The  passion  called  love 
has  so  general  and  powerful  an  influence  ;  it  makes  so  much  of 
the  entertainment,  and  indeed  so  much  of  the  occupation,  of 
that  part  of  life  which  decides  the  character  for  ever,  that  the 
mode  and  the  principles  on  which  it  engages  the  sympathy,  and 
strikes  the  imagination,  become  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
the  morals  and  manners  of  every  society.  Your  rulers  were 
well  aware  of  this  ;  and,  in  their  system  of  changing  your  man- 
ners to  accommodate  them  to  their  politics,  they  found  nothing 

8    That  is,  "  chose  to  have  the  teacher  stand  iu  the  place  of  a  revered  parent." 


224  BURKE. 

so  convenient  as  Eousseau.  Through  him  they  teach  men  to 
love  after  the  fashion  of  philosophers  ;  that  is,  they  teach  to 
men,  to  Frenchmen,  a  love  without  gallantry ;  a  love  without 
any  thing  of  that  fine  flower  of  youthfulness  and  gentility 
which  places  it,  if  not  among  the  virtues,  among  the  ornaments 
of  life.  Instead  of  this  passion,  naturally  allied  to  grace  and 
manners,  they  infuse  into  their  youth  an  unfashioned,  indeli- 
cate, sour,  gloomy,  ferocious  medley  of  pedantry  and  lewdness ; 
of  metaphysical  speculations  blended  with  the  coarsest  sensual- 
ity. Such  is  the  general  morality  of  the  passions  to  be  found  in 
their  famous  philosopher,  in  his  famous  work  of  philosophic 
gallantry,  the  NouvcUe  Eloisc. 

When  the  fence  from  the  gallantry  of  preceptors  is  broken 
down,  and  your  families  are  no  longer  protected  by  decent 
pride  and  salutary  domestic  prejudice,  there  is  but  one  step  to 
a  frightful  corruption.  The  rulers  in  the  National  Assembly 
are  in  good  hopes  that  the  females  of  the  first  families  in 
France  may  become  an  easy  prey  to  dancing-masters,  fiddlers, 
pattern-drawers,  friseurs,  and  valets  de  chambro,  and  other 
active  citizens  of  that  description,  who  having  the  entry  into 
your  houses,  and  being  half  domesticated  by  their  situation, 
may  be  blended  with  you  by  regular  and  irregular  relations. 
By  a  law  they  have  made  these  people  your  equals.  By  adopt- 
ing the  sentiments  of  Rousseau  they  have  made  them  your 
rivals.  In  this  manner  these  great  legislators  complete  their 
plan  of  levelling,  and  establish  their  rights  of  men  on  a  sure 
foundation. 

I  am  certain  that  the  writings  of  Eousseau  lead  directly  to 
this  kind  of  shameful  evil.  I  have  often  wondered  how  he 
conies  to  be  so  much  more  admired  and  followed  on  the  Conti- 
nent than  he  is  here.  Perhaps  a  secret  charm  in  the  language 
may  have  its  share  in  this  extraordinary  difference.  TV 
tainly  perceive,  and  to  a  degree  we  feel,  in  this  writer,  a  style 
glowing,  animated,  enthusiastic  ;  at  the  same  time  that  we  Qnd 
it  lax,  diffuse,  and  not  in  the  best  taste  of  composition  ;  all  the 
members  of  the  piece  being  pretty  equally  laboured  and  ex- 
panded, without  any  due  selection  or  subordination  of  parts, 
lie  is  generally  too  much  on  the  stretch,  and  his  manner  has 
little  variety.  We  cannot  rest  upon  any  of  his  works,  though 
they  contain  observations  which  occasionally  discover  a  consid- 
erable insight  into  human  nature.  But  his  doctrines,  on  the 
whole,  are  so  inapplicable  to  real  life  and  manners,  that  we 
never  dream  of  drawing  from  them  any  rule  for  laws  or  con- 
duct, or  for  fortifying  or  illustrating  any  thing  by  a  reference 
to  his  opinions.  They  have  with  us  the  fate  of  older  paradoxes, 


THE  rimes  or  VAXITY.  225 

Cum  ventum  ad  verum  cst,  sensus  morcsque  repugnant, 
Atque  ipsa  utilitas  justi  prope  mater  ct  reqni.9 

Perhaps  bold  speculations  are  more  acceptable  because  more 
new  to  you  than  to  us,  who  have  been  long  since  satiated  with 
them.  "We  continue,  as  in  the  two  last  ages,  to  read,  more  gen- 
erally than  I  believe  is  now  done  on  the  Continent,  the  authors 
of  sound  antiquity.  These  occupy  our  minds.  They  give  us 
another  taste  and  turn  ;  and  will  not  suffer  us  to  be  more  than 
transiently  amused  with  paradoxical  morality.  It  is  not  that 
I  consider  this  writer  as  wholly  destitute  of  just  notions. 
Amongst,  his  irregularities,  it  must  be  reckoned  that  he  is  some- 
times moral,  and  moral  in  a  very,  sublime  strain.  But  the  gen- 
eral ftpirit  and  tendency  of  his  works  is  mischievous  ;  and  the 
more  mischievous  for  this  mixture:  for  perfect  depravity  of 
sentiment  is  not  reconcilable  with  eloquence ;  and  the  mind 
(though  corruptible,  not  complexionally  vicious)  would  reject, 
and  throw  off  with  disgust,  a  lesson  of  pure  and  unmixed  evil. 
These  writers  make  even  virtue  a  pander  to  vice. 

However,  I  less  consider  tin-  author  than  the  system  of  the 
Assembly  in  perverting  morality  through  his  means.  This  I 
confess  makes  me  nearly  despair  of  any  attempt  upon  the  minds 
of  their  followers,  through  reason,  honour,  or  conscience.  The 
great  object  of  your  tyrants  is  to  destroy  the  gentlemen  of 
France  ;  and  for  that  purpose  they  destroy,  to  the  best  of  their 
power,  all  the  effect  of  those  relations  which  may  render  con- 
siderable men  powerful,  or  even  safe.  To  destroy  that  order, 
they  vitiate  the  whole  community.  That  no  means  may  exist 
of  confederating  against  their  tyranny,  by  the  false  sympathies 
of  this  Noui'cllc  Eloisc  they  endeavour  to  subvert  those  princi- 
ples of  domestic  trust  and  fidelity  which  form  the  discipline  of 
social  life.  They  propagate  principles  by  which  every  servant 
may  think  it,  if  not  his  duty,  at  least  his  privilege,  to  betray  his 
master.  By  these  principles,  every  considerable  father  of  a 
family  loses  the  sanctuary  of  his  house.  Dcbet  sua  cuique  damns 
iffhtm  tiitixxiiiium,1'  says  the  law,  which  your  legislators 
have  taken  so  much  pains  first  to  decry,  then  to  repeal.  They 
destroy  all  the  tranquillity  and  security  of  domestic  life  ;  turn- 
ing the  asylum  of  the  house  into  a  gloomy  prison,  where  the 
father  of  the  family  must  drag  out  a  miserable  existence,  en- 
dangered in  proportion  to  the  apparent  means  of  his  safety; 
v.here,  he  is  worse  than  solitary  in  a  crowd  of  domestics,  and 
more  apprehensive  from  his  servants  and  inmates  than  from 

9  To  come  to  the  truth  of  the  matter,  the  feelings  and  morals  fight  against 
thorn,  ;mrl  even  utility  itsell',  \\liicli  i,s  almost  the  mother  of  right  and  equity. 

10  Every  man's  own  home  ought  to  be  his  securest  refuge 


226  BURKE. 

the  hired,  bloodthirsty  mob  without-doors,  who  are  ready  to 
pull  him  to  the  lanterne. 

It  is  thus,  and  for  the  same  end,  that  they  endeavour  to 
destroy  that  tribunal  of  conscience  which  exists  independently 
of  edicts  and  decrees.  Your  despots  govern  by  terror.  They 
know  that  he  who  fears  God  fears  nothing  else  ;  and  therefore 
they  eradicate  from  the  mind,  through  their  Voltaire,  their 
Ilelvctius,  and  the  rest  of  that  infamous  gang,  that  only  sort  of 
fear  which  generates  true  courage.  Their  object  is,  that  their 
fellow-citizens  may  be  under  the  dominion  of  no  awe,  but  that 
of  their  committee  of  research,  and  of  their  lanterne.11 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  WHIGS.1 

I  DO  not  wish  to  enter  very  much  at  large  into  the  discussions 
which  diverge  and  ramify  in  all  ways  from  this  productive  sub- 
ject.   But  there  is  one  topic  upon  which  I  hope  I  shall  be 
excused  in  going  a  little  beyond  my  design.    The  factions,  now 
so  busy  amongst  us,  in  order  to  divest  men  of  all  love  for  their 
country,  and  to  remove  from  their  minds  all  duty  with  regard 
to  the  State,  endeavour  to  propagate  an  opinion  that  the  people, 
in  forming  their  commonwealth,  have  by  no  means  parted  with 
their  power  over  it.    This  is  an  impregnable  citadel,  to  which 
these  gentlemen  retreat  whenever  they  are  pushed  by  the  bat- 
tery of  laws  and  usages,  and  positive  conventions.    Indeed  it  is 
such  and  of  so  great  force,  that  all  they  have  done,  in  defending 
their  outworks,  is  so  much  time  and  labour  thrown  away.    Dis- 
cuss any  of  their  schemes,—  their  answer  is,  It  is  the  act  of  the 

II  The  character  here  given  of  Rousseau,  and  the  critical  remarks  on  the  stylo 
ai|l  tendcneyof  his  writings,  were  at  the  time  justly  admired  for  their  originality 
and  depth;  and  were  regarded  as  not  inferior  to  any  thing  that  came  from  the 
author's  pen. 

1  The  pages  which  follow,  under  this  heading,  are  from  a  book  published  in 
1701,  with  the  title,  "  An  Appeal  from  the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs,  in  Consequence 
of  some  late  Discussions  in  Parliament,  relative  to  the  Reflections  on  the  French 
Revolution.  1791."  The  work  is  a  defence  of  the  doctrines  maintained  in  the 
Reflections,  Not  long  after  the  appearance  of  the  previous  book,  the  radical  sec- 
tioii  of  the  Whigs,  with  Fox  at  their  head,  got  so  worked  up  against  the  doc- 
trines  there  taught,  and  against  the  author's  course  in  Parliament,  that  they 
formally  and  publicly  read  him  out  of  the  party,  as  a  deserter  or  renegade. 
They  did  good  service  to  their  country,  to  humanity,  and  to  the  cause  of  litera- 
ture, by  thus  provoking  him  to  write  the  Appeal,  which  completed  whatever 
may  have  been  wanting  to  the  full  triumph  of  his  former  work.  —In  these  pages, 
as  will  readily  be  seen,  the  author  constantly  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third 
person. 


THE   OLD   AND   THE   NEW   WHIGS.  227 

people,  and  that  is  sufficient  Are  we  to  deny  to  a  majority  of 
the  people  the  right  of  altering  e"ven  the  whole  frame  of  their 
society,  if  such  should  be  their  pleasure?  They  may  change  it, 
say  they,  from  a  monarchy  to  a  republic  to-day,  and  to-morrow 
back  again  from  a  republic  to  a  monarchy ;  and  so  backward 
and  forward  as  often  as  they  like.  They  are  masters  of  the 
commonwealth,  because  in  substance  they  are  themselves  the 
commonwealth.  The  French  Revolution,  say  they,  was  the  act 
of  the  majority  of  the  people  ;  and  if  the  majority  of  any  other 
people,  the  people  of  England  for  instance,  wish  to  make  the 
same  change,  they  have  the  same  right. 

Just  the  same  undoubtedly  ;  that  is,  none  at  all.  Neither  the 
few  nor  the  many  have  a  right  to  act  merely  by  their  will,  in 
any  matter  connected  with  duty,  trust,  engagement,  or  obliga- 
tion. The  Constitution  of  a  country  being  once  settled  upon 
some  compact,  tacit  or  expressed,  there  is  no  power  existing  of 
force  to  alter  it,  without  the  breach  of  the  covenant,  or  the  con- 
sent of  all  the  parties.  Such  is  the  nature  of  a  contract.  And 
the  votes  of  a  majority  of  the  people,  whatever  their  infamous 
llatteivrs  may  teach  in  order  to  corrupt  their  minds,  cannot 
alter  the  moral  anymore  than  they  can  alter  the  physical  es- 
sence of  things.  The  people  are  not  to  be  taught  to  think 
lightly  of  their  engagements  to  their  governors  ;  else  they 
teach  governors  to  think  lightly  of  their  engagements  towards 
them.  In  that  kind  of  game,  in  the  end  the  people  are  sure  to 
be  losers.  To  Hatter  them  into  a  contempt  of  faith,  truth,  and 
justice,  is  to  ruin  them  ;  for  in  these  virtues  consists  their  whole 
ty.  To  natter  any  man,  or  any  part  of  mankind,  in  any 
description,  by  assorting  that  in  engagements  he  or  they  are 
free,  whilst  any  other  human  creature  is  bound,  is  ultimately  to 
vest  the  rule  of  morality  in  the  pleasure  of  those  who  ought  to 
be  rigidly  submitted  to  it ;  to  subject  the  sovereign  reason  of 
the  world  to  the  caprices  of  weak  and  giddy  men. 

But  as  no  one  of  us  men  can  dispense  with  public  or  private 
faith,  or  with  any  other  tie  of  moral  obligation,  so  neither  can 
any  number  of  us.  The  number  engaged  in  crimes,  instead  of 
turning  them  into  laudable  acts,  only  augments  the  quantity 
and  intensity  of  the  guilt.  J  am  well  aware  that  men  love  to 
hear  of  their  power,  but  have  an  extreme  disrelish  to  be  told  of 
their  duty.  This  is  of  course;  because  every  duty  is  a  limita- 
tion of  some  power.  Indeed,  arbitrary  power  is  so  much  to  the 
depraved  taste  of  the  vulgar,  of  the  vulgar  of  every  description, 
that  almost  all  the  dissensions  which  lacerate  the,  common- 
wealth are  not  concerning  the  manner  in  which  it  is  to  be  exer- 
d,  but  concerning  the  hands  in  which  it  is  to  be  placed. 
Somewhere  they  are  resolved  to  have  it.  Whether  they  desire 


228  BURKE. 

it  to  bo  vested  in  the  many  or  the  few,  depends  with  most  men 
upon  the  chance  which  they  imagine  they  themselves  may  have 
of  partaking  in  the  exercise  of  that  arbitrary  sway,  in  the  one 
mode  or  in  the  other. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  teach  men  to  thirst  after  power.  But  it 
is  very  expedient  that  by  moral  instruction  they  should  be 
taught,  and  by  their  civil  Constitutions  they  should  be  com- 
pelled, to  put  many  restrictions  upon  the  immoderate  exercise 
of  it,  and  the  inordinate  desire.  The  best  method  of  obtaining 
these  two  great  points  forms  the  important,  but  at  the.  same. 
time  the  diflicult,  problem  to  the  true  statesman.  He  thinks  of 
the  place  in  which  political  power  is  to  be  lodged,  with  no  other 
attention  than  as  it  may  render  the  more  or  the  less  practicable 
its  salutary  restraint,  and  its  prudent  direction.  For  this  reason 
no  legislator,  at  any  period  of  the  world,  has  willingly  placed 
the  seat  of  active  power  in  the  hands  of  the  multitude  ;  because 
there  it  admits  of  no  control,  no  regulation,  no  steady  direction 
whatsoever.  The  people  are  the  natural  control  on  authority  ; 
but  to  exercise  and  to  control  together  is  contradictory  and 
impossible. 

As  the  exorbitant  exercise  of  power  cannot,  under  popular 
sway,  be  effectually  restrained,  the  other  great  object  of  politi- 
cal arrangement,  the  means  of  abating  an  excessive  desire  of  it, 
is  in  such  a  State  still  worse  provided  for.  The  democratic; 
commonwealth  is  the  foodful  nurse  of  ambition.  Under  the 
other  forms  it  meets  with  many  restraints.  Whenever,  in 
States  which  have  had  a  democratic  basis,  the  legislators  have 
endeavoured  to  put  restraints  upon  ambition,  their  methods 
were  as  violent  as  in  the  end  they  were  ineffectual  ;  as  violent 
indeed  as  any  the  most  jealous  despotism  could  invent.  The 
ostracism  could  not  very  long  save  itself,  and  much  less  the 
State  which  it  was  meant  to  guard,  from  the  attempts  of  aml>i- 
tion,  one  of  the  natural,  inbred,  incurable  distempers  of  a  pow- 
erful democracy. 

But  to  return  from  this  short  digression,  which  however  is 
not  wholly  foreign  to  the  question  of  the  effect  of  the  will  of  the 
majority  upon  the  form  or  the  existence  of  their  society.  I 
cannot  too  often  recommend  it  to  the  serious  consideration  of 
all  men,  who  think  civil  society  to  be  within  the  province  of 
moral  jurisdiction,  that  if  we  owe  to  it  any  duty,  it  is  not  subject 
to  our  will.  Duties  are  not  voluntary.  Duty  and  will  are  rvm 
contradictory  terms.  Xow,  though  civil  society  might  be  at 
first  a  voluntary  act,  (which  in  many  cases  it  undoubtedly  was, 
its  continuance  is  under  a  permanent,  standing  covenant,  co- 
existing with  the  society  ;  and  it  attaches  upon  every  individual 
of  that  society,  without  any  formal  act  of  his  own.  This  is 


E 


THE   OLD   ASTD   THE   NEW   WHIGS.  229 

warranted  by  the  general  practice,  arising  out  of  the  general 
sense  of  mankind.  Men  without  their  choice  derive  benefits 
from  that  association  ;  without  their  choice  they  are  subjected 
to  duties  in  consequence  of  these  benefits ;  and  without  their 
choice  they  enter  into  a  virtual  obligation  as  binding  as  any  that 
is  actual.  Look  through  the  whole  of  life  and  the  whole  system 
of  duties.  Much  the  strongest  moral  obligations  are  such  as 
were  never  the  results  of  our  option.  I  allow  that,  if  no  Su- 
preme Ruler  exists,  wise  to  form  and  potent  to  enforce  the 
moral  law,  there  is  no  sanction  to  any  contract,  virtual  or  even 
actual,  against  the  will  of  prevalent  power.  On  that  hypothe- 
sis, k-t  any  set  of  men  be  strong  enough  to  set  their  duties  at 
defiance,  and  they  cease  to  be  duties  any  longer.  We  have  but 
this  one  appeal  against  irresistible  power: 

Si  genus  humanum  ct  mortalia  temnitis  arma, 
At  sperate  Deos  memores  fandi  atquo  nefandi.2 

Taking  it  for  granted  that  I  do  not  write  to  the  disciples  of 
the  Parisian  philosophy,  I  may  assume  that  the  awful  Author 
of  our  being  is  the  Author  of  our  place  in  the  order  of  exist- 
ence ;  and  that,  having  disposed  and  marshalled  us  )>y  a  divine 
.  not  according  to  our  will,  but  according  to  His,  lie  has, 
in  and  l>y  that  disposition,  virtually  subjected  us  to  act  the 
part  which  belongs  to  tin-  place  assigned  us.  We  have  obliga- 
tions to  mankind  at  large,  which  are  not  in  consequence  of 
any  .-perial  voluntary  pact.  They  arise  from  the  relation  of 
man  toman,  and  the  relation  of  man  to  God,  which  relations 
are  not  matters  of  choice.  On  the  contrary,  the  force  of  all  tin- 
pacts  which  we  enter  into  with  any  particular  person,  or  num- 
ber of  persons  amongst  mankind,  depends  upon  those  prior 
obligations.  In  some  cases  the  subordinate  relations  arc  volun- 
tary, in  others  they  are  necessary ;  but  the  duties  arc  all  com- 
pulsive. When  we  marry,  the  choice  is  voluntary,  but  the 
are  not  matter  of  choice.  They  are  dictated  by  the  na- 
ture of  the  situation.  Dark  and  inscrutable  are  the  ways  by 
which  we  come  into  the  world.  The  instincts  which  give  rise, 
to  this  mysterious  process  of  Nature  are  not  of  our  making. 
But  out  of  physical  causes,  unknown  to  us,  perhaps  unknow- 
able, arise  moral  duties  which,  as  we  are  able  perfectly  to  com- 

ivhend,  we  are  bound  indispensably  to  perform.  Parents  may 
t  be  consenting  to  their  moral  relation ;  but,  consenting  or 

ot,  they  are  bound  to  a  long  train  of  burthensome  duties 
towards  those-  with  whom  they  have  never  made  a  convention 


2    If  you  despise  the  human  race  and  mortal  weapons,  yet  be  assured  that  tho 
gods  are  mindful  of  right  and  wrong. 


230  BURKE. 

of  any  sort.  Children  are  not  consenting  to  their  relation, 
but  their  relation,  without  their  actual  consent,  binds  them  to 
its  duties  ;  or  rather  it  implies  their  consent,  because  the  pre- 
sumed consent  of  every  rational  creature  is  in  unison  with  the 
predisposed  order  of  things.  Men  come  in  that  manner  into  a 
community  with  the  social  state  of  their  parents,  endowed  with 
all  the  benefits,  loaded  with  all  the  duties,  of  their  situation. 
If  the  social  ties  and  ligaments,  spun  out  of  those  physical  rela- 
tions which  are  the  elements  of  the  commonwealth,  in  most 
cases  begin,  and  alway  continue,  independently  of  our  will;  so, 
without  any  stipulation  on  our  own  part,  are  we  bound  by  that 
relation  called  our  country,  which  comprehends  (as  it  has  been, 
well  said)  "all  the  charities  of  all."3  Nor  are  we  left  without 
powerful  instincts  to  make  this  duty  as  dear  and  grateful  to  us, 
as  it  is  awful  and  coercive.  Our  country  is  not  a  thing  of  mere 
physical  locality.  It  consists,  in  a  great  measure,  in  the  an- 
cient order  into  which  we  are  born.  We  may  have  the  same 
geographical  situation,  but  another  country ;  as  we  may  have 
the  same  country  in  another  soil.  The  place  that  determines 
our  duty  to  our  country  is  a  social,  civil  relation. 

These  are  the  opinions  of  the  author  whose  cause  I  defend. 
I  lay  them  down,  not  to  enforce  them  upon  others  by  disputa- 
tion, but  as  an  account  of  his  proceedings.  On  them  he  acts; 
and  from  them  he  is  convinced  that  neither  he  nor  any  man,  or 
number  of  men,  have  a  right  (except  what  necessity,  which  is 
out  of  and  above  all  rule,  rather  imposes  than  bestows)  to  free 
themselves  from  that  primary  engagement  into  which  every 
man  born  into  a  community  as  much  contracts  by  Ijis  being 
born  into  it,  as  he  contracts  an  obligation  to  certain  parents  by 
his  having  been  derived  from  their  bodies.  The  place  of  every 
man  determines  his  duty.  If  you  ask,  Quern  te  Deus  esse  jussit  ? 
You  will  be  answered  when  you  resolve  this  other  question, 
Jfumana  qua  partc  locatus  es  in  re  ?4 

I  admit,  indeed,  that  in  morals,  as  in  all  things  else,  difficul- 
ties will  sometimes  occur.  Duties  will  sometimes  cross  one 
another.  Then  questions  will  arise,  which  of  them  is  to  be 
placed  in  subordination  ;  which  of  them  may  be  entirely  super- 
seded. These  doubts  give  rise  to  that  part  of  moral  science 

:$  This  quotation  is  from  Cicero,  De  Officiis,  i.  17;  but  loses  much  of  its  force 
when  thus  detached  from  the  beautiful  sentence  in  Which  it  stands:  "Parents 
are  dear,  children  are  dear,  so  are  kindred,  so  are  friends;  but  the  whole  dear- 
IH">S  of  all  these  is  embraced  in  the  one  fatherland;  for  which  what  good  man 
will  hesitate  to  die,  if  he  can  thereby  be  of  service  to  it?" 

4  That  is,  "  What  does  the  Deity  require  you  to  be?"  and,  "In  what  human 
relation  are  you  actually  placed?  "  The  quotations  are  from  the.  Roman  poet, 
Persius. 


THE  OLD   AND   THE   NEW   WHIGS.  231 

called  casuistry;  which,  though  necessary  to  be  well  studied  by 
those  who  would  become  expert  in  that  learning,  who  aim  at 
becoming  what,  I  think,  Cicero  somewhere  calls,  artifices  offi- 
ciorum, 5  requires  a  very  solid  and  discriminating  judgment, 
great  modesty  and  caution,  and  much  sobriety  of  mind  in  the 
handling ;  else  there  is  a  danger  that  it  may  totally  subvert 
those  offices  which  it  is  its  object  only  to  methodize  and 
reconcile.  Duties,  at  their  extreme  bounds,  are  drawn  very 
fine,  so  as  to  become  almost  evanescent.  In  that  state  some 
shade  of  doubt  will  always  rest  on  these  questions,  when  Jhey 
are  pursued  with  great  subtilty.  But  the  very  habit  of  stating 
these  extreme  cases  is  not  very  laudable  or  safe ;  because,  in 
general,  it  is  not  right  to  turn  our  duties  into  doubts.  They 
are  imposed,  to  govern  our  conduct,  not  to  exercise  our  inge- 
nuity ;  and  therefore  our  opinions  about  them  ought  not  to  be 
in  a  state  of  fluctuation,  but  steady,  sure,  and  resolved. 

Amongst  these  nice  and  therefore  dangerous  points  of  casu- 
istry may  be  reckoned  the  question  so  much  agitated  in  the 
present  hour,  Whether,  after  tho  people  have  discharged  them- 
selves of  their  original  power  by  an  habitual  delegation,  no 
occasion  can  possibly  occur  which  may  justify  the  resumption 
of  it?  This  question,  in  this  latitude,  is  very  hard  to  affirm  or 
deny :  but  I  am  satisfied  that  no  occasion  can  justify  such  a 
resumption,  which  would  not  equally  authorize  a  dispensation 
with  any  other  moral  duty,  perhaps  with  all  of  them  together. 
However,  if  in  general  it  be  not  easy  to  determine  concerning 
the  lawfulness  of  such  devious  proceedings,  which  must  be 
ever  on  the  edge  of  crimes,  it  is  far  from  difficult  to  foresee 
the  perilous  consequences  of  the  resuscitation  of  such  a  power 
in  the  people.  The  practical  consequences  of  any  political 
tenet  go  a  great  way  in  deciding  upon  its  value.  Political 
problems  do  not  primarily  concern  truth  or  falsehood.  They 
relate  to  good  or  evil.  What  in  the  result  is  likely  to  pro- 
.  il,  is  politically  false  ;  that  which  is  productive  of  good, 
politically  true. 

I'elieving  it,  therefore,  a  question  at  least  arduous  in  the 
theory,  and  in  the  practice  very  critical,  it  would  become  us 
•  •rtain,  as  well  as  we  can,  what  form  it  is  that  our  incanta- 
tions are  about  to  call  up  from  darkness  and  the  sleep  of  ages. 
When  the  supreme  authority  of  the  people  is  in  question, 
before  wo  attempt  to  extend  or  to  confine  it,  we  ought  to  fix  in 
our  minds,  with  some  degree  of  distinctness,  an  idea  of  what 
it  is  we  mean  when  we  say  the  PEOPLE. 

In  a  state  of  rude  nature  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  people. 

5    Arrangers  of  duties,  or,  men  skilled  in  the  science  of  duty. 


232  BURKE. 

A  number  of  men  in  themselves  have  no  collective  capacity. 
The  idea  of  a  people  is  the  idea  of  a  corporation.  It  is  wholly 
artificial ;  and  made,  like  all  other  legal  fictions,  by  common 
agreement.  What  the  particular  nature  of  that  agreement 
was,  is  collected  from  the  form  into  which  the  particular 
society  has  been  cast.  Any  other  is  not  their  covenant.  When 
men,  therefore,  break  up  the  original  compact  or  agreement 
which  gives  its  corporate  form  and  capacity  to  a  State,  they  are 
no  longer  a  people,  they  have  no  longer  a  corporate  exist  cure  : 
the^  have  no  longer  a  legal,  coactive  force  to  bind  within,  nor 
a  claim  to  be  recognized  abroad.  They  are  a  number  of  vague, 
loose  individuals,  and  nothing  more.  With  them  all  is  to  begin 
again.  Alas  !  they  little  know  how  many  a  weary  step  is  to  be 
taken  before  they  can  form  themselves  into  a  mass,  which  has 
a  true  politic  personality. 

We  hear  much  from  men,  who  have  not  acquired  their  hardi- 
ness of  assertion  from  the  profundity  of  their  thinking,  about 
the  omnipotence  of  a  majority,  in  such  a  dissolution  of  an  an- 
cient society  as  hath  taken  place  in  France.  But,  amongst  men 
so  disbanded,  there  can  be  no  such  tiling  as  majority  or  minor- 
ity ;  or  power  in  any  one  person  to  bind  another.  The  power  of 
acting  by  a  majority,  which  the  gentlemen  theorists  seem  to  as- 
sume so  readily,  after  they  have  violated  the  contract  out  of 
which  it  has  arisen,  (if  at  all  it  existed,)  must  be  grounded  on 
two  assumptions:  first,  that  of  an  incorporation  produced  by 
unanimity;  and,  secondly,  an  unanimous  agreement  that  the 
act  of  a  mere  majority  (say  of  one)  shall  pass  with  them  and 
with  others  as  the  act  of  the  whole. 

We  are  so  little  affected  by  things  which  are  habitual,  that 
we  consider  this  idea  of  the  decision  of  a  majority  as  if  it  were 
a  law  of  our  original  nature:  but  such  constructive  whole,  re- 
siding in  a  part  only,  is  one  of  the  most  violent  fictions  of  posi- 
tive law  that  ever  has  been  or  can  be  made  on  the  principles  of 
artificial  incorporation.  Out  of  civil  society  nature  knows  noth- 
ing of  it;  nor  are  men,  even  when  arranged  according  to  civil 
order,  otherwise  than  by  very  long  training,  brought  at  all  to 
submit  to  it.  The  mind  is  brought  far  more  easily  to  acquiesce 
in  the  proceedings  of  one  man,  or  a  few,  who  act  under  a  gen- 
eral procuration  for  the  State,  than  in  the  vote  of  a  victorious 
majority  in  councils  in  which  every  man  has  his  share  in  the 
deliberation.  For  there  the  beaten  party  are  exasperated  and 
soured  by  the  previous  contention,  and  mortified  by  the  conclu- 
sive defeat.  This  mode  of  decision,  where  wills  may  be  so 
nearly  equal,  where,  according  to  circumstances,  the  smaller 
number  may  be  the  stronger  force,  and  where  apparent  reason 
may  be  all  upon  one  side,  and  on  the  other  little  else  than  im- 


THE   OLD   AND  THE   XEW   WHIGS.  233 

petuous  appetite, — all  tins  must  be  the  result  of  a  very  particu- 
lar and  special  convention,  confirmed  afterwards  by  long  habits 
of  obedience,  by  a  sort  of  discipline  in  society,  and  by  a  strong 
hand,  vested  with  stationary,  permanent  power,  to  enforce  this 
sort  of  constructive  general  will.  What  organ  it  is  that  shall 
declare  the  corporate  mind,  is  so  much  a  matter  of  positive  ar- 
rangement, that  several  States,  for  the  validity  of  several  of  their 
Acts,  have  required  a  proportion  of  voices  much  greater  than, 
that  of  a  mere  majority.  These  proportions  are  so  entirely  gov- 
erned by  convention,  that  in  some  cases  the  minority  decides. 
The  laws  in  many  countries  to  cnnJnun  require  more  tlfhn  a 
mere  majority;  less  than  an  equal  number  to  acquit.  In  our 
judicial  trials  we  require  unanimity  either  to  condemn  or  to  ab- 
solve. In  some  incorporations  one  man  speaks  for  the  whole  ; 
in  others,  a  few.  I'ntil  the  other  day,  in  the  Constitution  of 
Poland,  unanimity  was  required  to  give  validity  to  any  Act  of 
their  great  national  council  or  diet.  This  approaches  much 
more  nearly  to  rude  nature  than  the  institutions  of  any  other 
country.  Such,  indeed,  every  commonwealth  must  be,  without 
a  positive  law  to  recognise  in  a  certain  number  the  will  of  the 
entire  body. 

If  men  dissolve  their  ancient  incorporation  in  order  to  regen- 
erate their  community,  in  that  state  of  things  each  man  has  a 
right,  if  he  pleases,  t<>  remain  an  individual.  Any  number  of 
individuals,  who  can  aurree  upon  it,  have  an  undoubted  right  to 
form  themselves  into  a  State  apart,  and  wholly  independent. 
It  any  of  these  is  forced  into  the  fellowship  of  another,  this -is 
conquest,  and  not  compact.  On  every  principle,  which  sup- 
-ociety  to  be  in  virtue  of  a  free  covenant,  this  compulsive 
incorporation  must  be  null  and  void. 

As  a  people  can  have  no  right  to  a  corporate  capacity  without 
universal  consent,  so  neither  have  they  a  right  to  hold  exclu- 
sively any  lands  in  the  name  and  title  of  a  corporation.  On  the 
scheme  of  the  present  rulers  in  our  neighbouring  country, 

rated  as  they  are,  they  have  no  more  right  to  the  terri- 
tory called  .France  than  I  have.  I  have  a  right  to  pitch  my  tent 
in  an\  unoccupied  place  I  can  iind  for  it;  and  I  may  apply  to 
my  own  maintenance  any  part  of  their  unoccupied  soil.  1  may 
purchase  the  house  or  vineyard  of  any  individual  proprietor 
who  refuses  his  consent  (and  most  proprietors  have,  as  far  as 

iivd,  refused  it )  to  the  new  incorporation.  I  stand  in  his 
independent  place.  "Who  are  these  insolent  men  calling  them- 
selves the  French  nation,  that  would  monopolize  this  fair  do- 
main of  Nature:'  Is  it  because  they  speak  a  certain  jargon? 
Is  it  their  mode  of  chattering,  to  me  unintelligible,  that  forms 
their  title  to  my  land?  Who  are  they  who  claim  by  pre>< -rip- 


234  BURKE. 

tion  and  descent  from  certain  gangs  of  banditti  called  Franks, 
and  Burgundians,  and  Visigoths,  of  whom  I  may  have  never 
heard,  and  ninety-nine  out  of  an  hundred  of  themselves  cer- 
tainly never  have  heard ;  whilst  at  the  very  time  they  tell  me 
that  prescription  and  long  possession  form  no  title  to  property  ? 
Who  are  they  that  presume  to  assert  that  the  land  which  I  pur- 
chased of  the  individual,  a  natural  person,  and  not  a  fiction  of 
State,  belongs  to  them,  who  in  the  very  capacity  in  which  they 
make  their  claim  can  exist  only  as  an  imaginary  being,  and  in 
virtue  of  the  very  prescription  which  they  reject  and  disown? 
This  mode  of  arguing  might  be  pushed  into  all  the  detail,  so  as 
to  leave  no  sort  of  doubt,  that  on  their  principles,  and  on  the 
sort  of  footing  on  which  they  have  thought  proper  to  place 
themselves,  the  crowd  of  men,  on  the  other  side  of  the  channel, 
who  have  the  impudence  to  call  themselves  A  people,  can  never 
be  the  lawful,  exclusive  possessors  of  the  soil.  J>y  what  they 
call  reasoning  without  prejudice,  they  leave  not  one  stone  upon 
another  in  the  fabric  of  human  society.  They  subvert  all  the 
authority  which  they  hold,  as  well  as  all  that  which  they  have 
destroyed. 

As,  in  the  abstract,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that,  out  of  a  state  of 
civil  society,  majority  and  minority  are  relations  which  can 
have  no  existence;  and  that,  in  civil  society,  its  own  specific 
conventions  in  each  corporation  determine  what  it  is  that  con- 
stitutes the  people,  so  as  to  make  their  act  the  signification  of 
the  general  will ;  to  come  to  particulars,  it  is  equally  clear,  that 
neither  in  France  nor  in  England  has  the  original  or  any  subse- 
quent compact  of  the  State,  expressed  or  implied,  constituted  a 
vuijirrityofmcn,  told  by  the  head,  to  be  the  acting  people  of  their 
several  communities.  And  I  see  as  little  of  policy  or  utility  as 
there  is  of  right,  in  laying  down  a  principle  that  a  majority  of 
men  told  by  the  head  are  to  be  considered  as  the  people,  and 
that  as  such  their  will  is  to  be  law.  What  policy  can  there  be 
found  in  arrangements  made  in  defiance  of  every  political  prin- 
ciple ?  To  enable  men  to  act  with  the  weight  anil  character  of 
a  people,  and  to  answer  the  ends  for  which  they  are  incorpo- 
rated into  that  capacity,  we  must  suppose  them  ^by  means  im- 
mediate or  consequential)  to  be  in  that  state  of  habitual  social 
discipline  in  which  the  wiser,  the  more  expert,  and  the  more 
opulent  conduct,  and  by  conducting  enlighten  and  protect,  the 
weaker,  the  less  knowing,  and  the  less  provided  with  the  goods 
of  fortune.  When  the  multitude  are  not  under  this  discipline, 
they  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  in  civil  society.  Give  once  a 
certain  constitution  of  things,  which  produces  a  variety  of  con- 
ditions and  circumstances  in  a  State,  and  there  is  in  Xature  and 
reason  a  principle  which,  for  their  own  benefit,  postpones,  not 


THE   OLD   AND  THE   NEW  WHIGS.  235 

the  interest,  but  the  judgment,  of  those  who  are  numero  plures, 
to  those  who  are  virtute  ct  honore  majores*  Numbers  in  a  State 
(supposing,  which  is  not  the  case  in  France,  that  a  State  does 
exist !  arc  always  of  consideration  ;  but  they  are  not  the  whole 
consideration.  It  is  in  things  more  serious  than  a  play  that  it 
may  be  truly  said,  satis  est  equitem  mihi  plaudcre.7 

A  true  natural  aristocracy  is  not  a  separate  interest  in  the 
Slate,  or  separable  from  it  It  is  an  essential  integrant  part  of 
any  large  body  rightly  constituted.  It  is  formed  out  of  a  class 
of  legitimate  presumptions,  which,  taken  as  generalities,  must 
be  admitted  for  actual  truths.  To  be  bred  in  a  place  of  estima- 
tion ;  to  see  nothing  low  and  sordid  from  one's  infancy ;  to  be 
taught  to  respect  one's  self;  to  be  habituated  to  the  censorial 
in-pretion  of  the  public  eye  ;  to  look  early  to  public  opinion  ;  to 
stand  upon  such  elevated  ground  as  to  be  enabled  to  take  a 
large  view  of  the  wide-spread  and  infinitely-diversified  combina- 
tions of  men  and  affairs  in  a  large  society ;  to  have  leisure  to 
read,  to  ivilfrt,  to  converse;  to  be  enabled  to  draw  the  court 
and  attention  of  the  wise  and  learned  wherever  they  are  to  be 
found  ;  — to  be  habituated  in  armies  to  command  and  to  obey  ; 
to  be  taught  to  dcspi>e  danger  in  the  pursuit  of  honour  and 
duty;  to  be  formed  to  the  greatest  degree  of  vigilance,  fore- 
sight, and  (•irrr.iiisprrtion,  in  a  state  of  things  in  which  no  fault 
is  committed  with  impunity,  and  the  slightest  mistakes  draw  on 
the  mo-t  ruinous  consequences  ;  —  to  be  led  to  a  guarded  and 
regulated  conduct,  from  a  sense  that  you  are  considered  as  an 
instructor  of  your  fellow-citizens  in  their  highest  concerns,  and 
that  you  act  as  a  reconciler  between  God  and  man ;  to  be  em- 
ployed as  an  administrator  of  law  and  justice,  and  to  be  there- 
by among-t  the  first  benefactors  to  mankind  ;  to  be  a  professor 
of  high  science,  or  of  liberal  and  ingenuous  art;  to  be  amongst 
rich  traders,  who  from  their  success  are  presumed  to  have  sharp 
and  \igorous  understandings,  and  to  possess  the  virtues  of  dili- 
.  order,  constancy,  and  regularity,  and  to  have  cultivated 
an  habitual  regard  to  commutative  justice  ;  — these  are  the  cir- 
cumstances of  men  that  form  what  I  should  call  a  natural  aris- 
lo< -racy,  without  which  there  is  no  nation. 

The  state  of  civil  society  which  necessarily  generates  this 
racy  is  a  state  of  nature  ;  and  much  more  truly  so  than  a 
savage  and  incoherent  mode  of  life.  For  man  is  by  nature  rea- 
sonable ;  and  he  is  never  perfectly  in  his  natural  state,  but 
when  he  is  placed  where  reason  may  be  best  cultivated,  and 
most  predominates.  Art  is  man's  nature.  We  are  as  much,  at 

6    That  is,  more  in  number,  and  superior  in  virtue  and  honour. 
1    It  is  enough  that  a  knight  applauds  me. 


236  BURKE. 

least,  in  a  state  of  nature  in  formed  manhood  as  in  immature 
and  helpless  infancy.  Men,  qualified  in  the  manner  I  have  just 
described,  form  in  Nature,  ns  she  operates  in  the  common  modi- 
fication of  society,  the  leading:,  guiding,  and  governing  part. 
It  is  the  soul  to  the  body,  without  which  the  man  does  not  exist. 
To  give,  therefore,  no  more  importance,  in  the  social  order,  to 
such  descriptions  of  men  than  that  of  so  many  units,  is  a  horri- 
ble usurpation. 

When  great  multitudes  act  together,  under  that  discipline  of 
Nature,  I  recognize  the  PEOPLE.  I  acknowledge  something 
that  perhaps  equals,  and  ought  always  to  guide,  the  sovereignty 
of  convention.  In  all  things  the  voice  of  this  grand  chorus  of 
national  harmony  ought  to  have  a  mighty  and  decisive  influ- 
ence. But,  when  you  disturb  this  harmony ;  when  you  break 
up  this  beautiful  order,  this  array  of  truth  and  nature,  as  well 
as  of  habit  and  prejudice  ;  when  you  separate  the  common  sort 
of  men  from  their  proper  chieftains,  so  as  to  form  them  into  an 
adverse  army,  — I  no  longer  know  that  venerable  object  called 
the  People  in  such  a  disbanded  race  of  deserters  and  vagabonds. 
For  a  while  they  may  be  terrible  indeed  ;  but  in  such  a  manner 
as  wild  beasts  are  terrible.  The  mind  owes  to  them  no  sort  of 
submission.  They  are,  as  they  have  always  been  reputed, 
rebels.  They  may  lawfully  be  fought  with  and  brought  under, 
whenever  an  advantage  offers.  Those  who  attempt  by  outrage 
and  violence  to  deprive  men  of  any  advantage  which  they  hold 
under  the  laws,  and  to  destroy  the  natural  order  of  life,  proclaim. 
war  against  them, 

We  have  read  in  history  of  that  furious  insurrection  of  the 
common  people  in  France  called  the  Jacquerie:  for  this  is  not 
the  first  time  that  the  people  have  been  enlightened  into  trea- 
son, murder,  and  rapine.  Its  object  was  to  extirpate  the  gentry. 
The  Captal  de  ]>uche,  a  famous  soldier  of  those  days,  dishon- 
oured the  name  of  a  gentleman  and  of  a  man  by  taking,  for 
their  cruelties,  a  cruel  vengeance  on  those  deluded  wretches. 
It  was,  however,  his  right  and  his  duty  to  make  war  upon  them, 
and  afterwards,  in  moderation,  to  bring  them  to  punishment  for 
their  rebellion  ;  though,  in  the  sense  of  the  French  Revolution, 
and  of  some  of  our  clubs,  they  were  the  people;  and  were  truly 
so,  if  you  will  call  by  that  appellation  any  majority  nf  men  told 
I) II  the  head. 

At  a  time  not  very  remote  from  the  same  period  (for  these 
humours  never  have  affected  one  of  the  nations  without  some 
inlluence  on  the  other)  happened  several  risings  of  the  lower 
commons  in  England.  These  insurgents  were  certainly  the 
majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  counties  in  which  they  re- 
sided ;  and  Cade,  Ket,  and  Straw,  at  the  head  of  their  national 


S 


THE   OLD   AND  THE   NEW   WHIGS.  237 

guards,  and  fomented  by  certain  traitors  of  high  rank,  did  no 
more  than  exert,  according  to  the  doctrines  of  our  and  the  Pa- 
risian societies,  the  sovereign  power  inherent  in  the  majority. 

We  call  the  time  of  those  events  a  dark  age.  Indeed,  we  are 
too  indulgent  to  our  own  proficiency.  The  Abbe  John  Ball  un- 
derstood the  rights  of  man  as  well  as  the  Abbe  Gregoire.8  That 
reverend  patriarch  of  sedition,  and  prototype  of  our  modern 
preachers,  was  of  opinion  with  the  National  Assembly,  that  all 
the  evils  which  have  fallen  upon  men  had  been  caused  by  an 
ignorance  of  their  "  having  been  born  and  continued  equal  as  to 
their  rights."  Had  the  populace  been  able  to  repeat  that  pro 
found  maxim,  all  would  have  gone  perfectly  well  with  them. 
Xo  tyranny,  no  vexation,  no  oppression,  no  care,  no  sorrow, 
could  have  existed  in  the  world.  This  would  have  cured  them 
like  a  charm  for  the  toothache.  But  the  lowest  wretches,  in 
their  most  ignorant  state,  were  able  at  all  times  to  talk  such 
stuff;  and  yet  at  all  times  have  they  suffered  many  evils  and 
many  oppressions,  both  before  and  since  the  repnblication  by 
the  National  Assembly  of  this  spell  of  healing  potency  and 
virtue.  The  enlightened  Dr.  Ball,  when  he  wished  to  rekindle 
the  lights  and  fires  of  his  audience  on  this  point,  chose  for  the 
text  the  following  couplet: 

When  Adam  delved  and  Eve,  span, 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman? 

Of  this  sapient  maxim,  however,  I  do  not  give  him  for  the  in- 
ventor. It  seems  to  have  been  handed  down  by  tradition,  and 
had  certainly  become  proverbial;  but  whet  her  then  composed 
or  only  applied,  thus  much  must  be  admitted,  that  in  learning, 
sense,  energy,  and  comprehensiveness,  it  is  fully  equal  to  all 

e  modern  dissertations  on  the  equality  of  mankind  ;  and  it 
lias  one  advantage  over  them, — that  it  is  in  rhyme. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  this  great  teacher  of  the  rights  of 
man  decorated  his  discourse  on  this  valuable  text  with  lem- 
mas, theorems,  scholia,  corollaries,  and  all  the  apparatus  of 
s<  ience,  which  was  furnished  in  as  great  plenty  and  perfection 
uut  of  the  dogmatic  and  polemic  magazines,  the  old  horse- 
armoury  of  the  Schoolmen,  among  whom  the  Ilev.  Dr.  Ball  was 
bred,  as  they  can  be  supplied  from  the  new  arsenal  at  Hackney. 

8  The  Abbt-  (.n-^oin;  was  one  of  the  few  French  priests  who  turned  against 
their  order,  and  joined  the  new  church  of  Jacobinism :  to  keep  himself  in  favour 
with  the  revolutionary  chiefs,  he  proposed  some  of  their  most  atrocious  meas- 
ures.—John  IJall  wan  a  seditious  preacher,  who  stirred  up  the  dre^s  of  the  pop. 
an  insurrection  in  the  year  HJsi ;  here  called  an  AblxS  by  way  of  offset 
to  the  French  apostle  of  disorder  who  wore  that  title. 


238  BURKE. 

It  was  no  doubt  disposed  with  all  the  adjutancy  of  definition 
and  division,  in  which  (I  speak  it  with  submission)  the  old  mar- 
shals were  as  able  as  the  modern  martinets.  Neither  can  we 
deny  that  the  philosophic  auditory,  when  they  had  once  ob- 
tained this  knowledge,  could  never  return  to  their  former 
ignorance  ;  or,  after  so  instructive  a  lecture,  be  in  the  same 
state  of  mind  as  if  they  had  never  heard  it.  But  these  poor 
people,  who  were  not  to  be  envied  for  their  knowledge,  but 
pitied  for  their  delusion,  were  not  reasoned,  (that  was  impos- 
sible,) but  beaten  out  of  their  lights.  With  their  teacher  they 
were  delivered  over  to  the  lawyers  ;  who  wrote  in  their  blood 
the  statutes  of  the  land  as  harshly,  and  in  the  same  sort  of  ink, 
as  they  and  their  teachers  had  written  the  rights  of  man. 

Our  doctors  of  the  day  are  not  so  fond  of  quoting  the  opinions 
of  this  ancient  sage  as  they  are  of  imitating  his  conduct :  first, 
because  it  might  appear,  that  they  are  not  as  groat  inventors  as 
they  would  be  thought;  and  next,  because,  unfortunately  for 
his  fame,  he  was  not  successful.  It  is  a  remark  liable  to  as  few 
exceptions  as  any  generality  can  be,  that  they  who  applaud 
prosperous  folly,  and  adore  triumphant  guilt,  have  never  been 
known  to  succour  or  even  to  pity  human  weakness  or  offence 
when  they  become  subject  to  human  vicissitude,  and  meet  with 
punishment  instead  of  obtaining  power.  Abating  for  their 
want  of  sensibility  to  the  sufferings  of  their  associates,  they  are 
not  so  much  in  the  wrong :  for  madness  and  wickedness  are 
things  foul  and  deformed  in  themselves  ;  and  stand  in  need  of 
all  the  coverings  and  trappings  of  fortune  to  recommend  them 
to  the  multitude.  Nothing  can  be  more  loathsome  in  their 
naked  nature. 

Aberrations  like  these,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  unsuc- 
cessful or  prosperous,  are  things  of  passage.  They  furnish  no 
argument  for  supposing  a  multitude  told  by  the  head  to  be  the  peo- 
ple. Such  a  multitude  can  have  no  sort  of  title  to  alter  the 
seat  of  power  in  the  society,  in  which  it  ever  ought  to  be  the 
obedient,  and  not  the  ruling  or  presiding  part.  What  power 
may  belong  to  the  whole  mass,  in  which  mass  the  natural 
aristocracy,  or  what  by  convention  is  appointed  to  represent 
and  strengthen  it,  acts  in  its  proper  place,  with  its  proper 
weight,  and  without  being  subjected  to  violence,  is  a  deeper 
question.  But  in  that  case,  and  with  that  concurrence,  I  should 
have  much  doubt  whether  any  rash  or  desperate  changes  in  tho 
State,  such  as  we  have  seen  in  France,  could  ever  be  effected 

I  have  said,  that  in  all  political  questions  the  consequences 
of  any  assumed  rights  are  of  great  moment  in  deciding  upon 
their  validity.  In  this  point  of  view  let  us  a  little  scrutinize 
the  effects  of  a  right  in  the  mere  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of 


THE   OLD   AND  THE   NEW   WHIGS.  239 

any  country  of  superseding  and  altering  their  government  at 
pleasure. 

The  sum  total  of  every  people  is  composed  of  its  units. 
Every  individual  must  have  a  right  to  originate  vhat  after- 
wards is  to  become  the  Act  of  the  majority.  Whatever  he  may 
lawfully  originate  he  may  lawfully  endeavour  to  accomplish. 
He  has  a  right  therefore  in  his  own  particular  to  break  the  ties 
and  engagements  which  bind  him  to  the  country  in  which  he 
lives  ;  and  lie  has  a  right  to  make  as  many  converts  to  his  opin- 
ions, and  to  obtain  as  many  associates  in  his  designs,  as  he  can 
procure  :  for  how  can  you  know  the  dispositions  of  the  majority 
to  destroy  their  government,  but  by  tampering  with  some  part 
of  the  body?  You  must  begin  by  a  secret  conspiracy,  that  you 
may  end  with  a  national  confederation.  The  mere  pleasure  of 
the  beginner  must  be  the  sole  guide  ;  since  the  mere  pleasure 
of  others  must  be  the  sole  ultimate  sanction,  as  well  as  the 
sole  actuating  principle,  in  every  part  of  the  progress.  Thus, 
arbitrary  will,  (the  last  corruption  of  ruling  power,)  step  by 

.  poisons  the  heart  of  every  citizen.  If  the  undertaker 
fails,  he  has  the  misfortune  of  a  rebel,  but  not  the  guilt.  By 
such  doctrines,  all  love  to  our  country,  all  pious  veneration  and 
attachment  to  its  laws  and  customs,  are  obliterated  from  our 
minds  ;  and  nothing  can  result  from  this  opinion,  when  grown 
into  a  principle,  and  animated  by  discontent,  ambition,  or 
enthusiasm,  but  a  series  of  conspiracies  and  seditions,  some- 
times ruinous  to  their  authors,  always  noxious  to  the  State, 
of  duty  can  prevent  any  man  from  being  a  leader  or  a 
follower  in  such  enterprises.  Nothing  restrains  the  tempter; 
nothing  guards  the  tempted.  Nor  is  the  new  State,  fabricated 
by  such  arts,  safer  than  the  old.  What  can  prevent  the  mere 
will  of  any  person,  who  hopes  to  unite  the  wills  of  other  to  his 
own,  from  an  attempt  wholly  to  overturn  it?  It  wants  nothing 
but  a  disposition  to  trouble  the  established  order,  to  give  a  title 
to  the  enterprise. 
When  you  combine  this  principle,  of  the  right  to  change  a 

t  and  tolerable  constitution  of  things  at  pleasure,  with  the 
theory  and  practice  of  the  French  Assembly,  the  political,  civil, 
and  moral  irregularity  are,  if  possible,  aggravated.  The  Assem- 
bly have  found  another  road,  and  a  far  more  commodious,  to 
the  destruction  of  an  old  government,  and  the  legitimate  forma- 
tion of  ii  new  one,  than  t  h rough  the  previous  will  of  the  majority 
of  what  they  call  the  people.  Get,  say  they,  the  possession  of 
power  by  any  means  you  can  into  your  hands  ;  and  then  a  sub- 
sequent, consent  (what  they  call  an  address  of  adhesion)  makes 
your  authority  a.^  much  the  Act  of  the  people  as  if  they  had 
conferred  upon  you  originally  that  kind  and  degree  of  power 


240  .         BUKKE. 

which,  without  their  permission,  you  had  seized  upon.  This  is 
to  give  a  direct  sanction  to  fraud,  hypocrisy,  perjury,  and  the 
breach  of  the  most  sacred  trusts  that  can  exist  between  man 
and  man.  AVhat  can  sound  with  such  horrid  discordance  in  the 
moral  ear  as  this  position, — That  a  delegate  with  limited  powers 
may  break  his  sworn  engagements  to  his  constituents,  assume 
an  authority,  never  committed  to  him;  to  alter  all  things  at  his 
pleasure  ;  and  then,  if  he  can  persuade  a  large  number  of  men 
to  Hatter  him  in  the  power  he  has  usurped,  that  he  is  absolved 
in  his  own  conscience,  and  ought  to  stand  acquitted  in  the  eyes 
of  mankind?  On  this  scheme,  the  maker  of  the  experiment 
inii^t  begin  with  a  determined  perjury.  That  point  is  certain. 
He  must  take  his  chance  for  the  expiatory  addresses.  This  is 
to  make  the  success  of  villainy  the  standard  of  innoeemv. 

Without  drawing  on,  therefore,  very  shocking  consequences, 
neither  by  previous  consent  nor  by  subsequent  ratilieatimi  of  a 
mere  reckoned  nwjoritii,  can  any  set  of  men  attempt  to  dissolve 
the  State  at  their  pleasure.  To  apply  this  to  our  present  sub- 
ject. When  the  several  orders,  in  their  several  bailliages,  had 
met  in  the  year  17s:),  (such  of  thorn,  I  mean,  as  had  met  peaceably 
and  constitutionally,)  to  choose  and  to  instruct  their  representa- 
tives ;  so  organized  and  so  acting,  (because  they  were  organized 
and  were  acting  according  to  the  conventions  which  made  them 
a  people,)  they  were  the  people  of  France.  They  had  a  legal 
and  a  natural  capacity  to  be  considered  as  that  people.  IJnt, 
observe,  whilst  they  were  in  this  state,  that  is,  whilst  they  were 
a  people,  in  no  one  of  their  instructions  did  they  charge  or  even 
hint  at  any  one  of  those  things  which  have  drawn  upon  the 
usurping  Assembly,  and  their  adherents,  the  detestation  of  the 
rational  and  thinking  part  of  mankind.  I  will  venture  to  atlirm, 
without  the  least  apprehension  of  being  contradicted  by  any 
person  who  knows  the  then  state  of  France,  that,  if  any  one  of 
the  changes  had  been  proposed  which  form  the  fundamental 
parts  of  their  Revolution,  and  compose  its  most  distinguishing 
acts,  it  would  not  have  had  one  vote  in  twenty  thousand  in  any 
order.  Their  instructions  purported  the  direct  contrary  to  all 
those  famous  proceedings  which  are  defended  as  the  Acts  of  the 
people.  Had  such  proceedings  been  expected,  the  great  proba- 
bility is,  that  the  people  would  then  have  risen,  as  to  a  man,  to 
prevent  them.  The  whole  organization  of  the  Assembly  was 
altered,  the  whole  frame  of  the  kingdom  was  changed,  before 
these  things  could  be  done.  It  is  long  to  tell,  by  what  evil  arts 
of  the  conspirators,  and  by  what  extreme  weakness  and  want  ot 
steadiness  in  the  lawful  government,  this  equal  usurpation  on 
the  rights  of  the  prince  and  people,  having  Jirst  cheated,  and 
then  offered  violence  to  both,  has  been  able  to  triumph,  and  to 


THE   OLD    AXD   THE    XEW  WHIGS.  241 

employ  with  success  the  forged  signature  of  an  imprisoned  sov- 

ereign, and  the  spurious  voice  of  dictated  addresses,  to  a  subse- 
quent ratification  of  things  that  had  never  received  any  previous 
sanction,  general  or  particular,  expressed  or  implied,  from  the 
nation,  (in  whatever  sense  that  word  is  taken,)  or  from  any  part 
of  it. 

After  the  weighty  and  respectable  part  of  the  people  had 
been  murdered,  or  driven  by  the  menaces  of  murder  from  their 
houses,  or  were  dispersed  in  exile  into  every  country  in  Europe; 
after  the  soldiery  had  been  debauched  from  their  officers  ;  after 
property  had  lost  its  weight  and  consideration,  along  with  its 
security  ;  after  voluntary  clubs  and  associations  of  factious  and 
unprincipled  men  were  substituted  in  the  place  of  all  the.  legal 
corporations  of  the  kingdom  arbitrarily  dissolved  ;  after  free- 
dom had  been  banished  from  those  popular  meetings  '•'  whoso 
sole  recommendation  is  freedom  ;  after  it  had  come  to  that  pass 
that  no  dissent  could  appear  in  any  of  them,  but  at  the  certain 
price  of  life;  after  even  dissent  had  been  anticipated,  and 
a*<as>ination  became  as  quick  as  suspicion  ;  —  such  pretended 
ratification  by  addresses  could  be  no  Act  of  what  any  lover  of 
the  people  would  choose  to  call  by  their  name.  It  is  that  voice 
which  every  successful  usurpation,  as  well  as  this  before  us, 
may  easily  procure,  even  without  making  (as  these  tyrants  have 
made)  donatives  from  the  spoil  of  one  part  of  the  citizens  to 
corrupt  the  other. 

The  pretended  rights  of  man,  which  have  made  this  havoc, 
cannot  be  the  rights  of  the  people.  For,  to  be  a  people,  and  t.» 
have  these  rights,  are  things  incompatible.  The  one  supposes 
the  presence,  1  he  other  the  absence,  of  a  state  of  civil  society. 
The  very  foundation  of  the  French  commonwealth  is  false  and 
self-destructive;  nor  can  its  principles  In-  adopted  in  any  coun- 
try, without  the  certainty  of  bringing  it  to  the  very  same  condi- 
tion in  which  France  is  found.  Attempts  are  made  to  introduce 
them  into  every  nation  in  Europe.  This  nation,  as  possessing 
•  •atest  influence,  they  wish  most  to  corrupt,  as  by  that 
mean-  they  are  assured  the  contagion  must  become  general.  I 
hope,  therefore,  I  shall  be  excused,  if  I  endeavour  to  show,  as 
shortly  as  the  matter  will  admit,  the  danger  of  giving  to  them, 
either  avowedly  or  tacitly,  the  smallest  countenance. 

There  are  times  and  circumstances  in  which  not  to  speak  out 
is  at  least  to  connive.  Many  think  it  enough  for  them,  that  the 
principles  propagated  by  these  clubs  and  societies,  enemies  to 
their  country  and  its  Constitution,  are  not.  owned  by  the  modern 
iijx  in  rnrlininrnt,  who  are  so  warm  in  condemnation  of  Mr. 


9    The  "popular  meeting.*"  here  referred  to  were  the  primary  assemblies. 


242  BURKE. 

Burke  and  his  book,  and  of  course  of  all  the  principles  of  the 
ancient,  constitutional  Whigs  of  this  kingdom.  Certainly  they 
are  not  owned.  But  are  they  condemned  with  the  same  zeal  as 
Mr.  Burke  and  his  book  are  condemned?  Are  they  condemned 
at  all  ?  Are  they  rejected  or  discountenanced  in  any  way  what- 
soever? Is  any  man  who  would  fairly  examine  into  the  de- 
meanour and  principles  of  those  societies,  and  that  too  very 
moderately,  and  in  the  way  rather  of  admonition  than  of  pun- 
ishment, is  such  a  man  even  decently  treated?  Is  he  not 
reproached,  as  if,  in  condemning  such  principles,  he  had  belied 
the  conduct  of  his  whole  life,  suggesting  that  his  life  had  been 
governed  by  principles  similar  to  those  which  he  now  repro- 
bates ?  The  French  system  is  in  the  mean  time,  by  many  active 
agents  out  of  dcors,  rapturously  praised  ;  the  British  Constitu- 
tion is  coldly  tolerated.  But  these  Constitutions  are  different, 
both  in  the  foundation  and  in  the  whole  superstructure  ;  and  it 
is  plain  that  you  cannot  build  up  the  one  but  on  the  ruins  of 
the  other.  After  all,  if  the  French  be  a  superior  system  of  lib- 
erty, why  should  we  not  adopt  it?  To  what  end  are  our  praises? 
Is  excellence  held  out  to  us  only  that  we  should  not  copy  after 
it?  And  what  is  there  in  the  manners  of  the  people,  or  in  the 
climate  of  France,  which  renders  that  species  of  republic  lit  ted 
for  them,  and  unsuitable  to  us?  A  strong  and  marked  differ- 
ence between  the  two  nations  ought  to  be  shown,  before  we  can 
admit  a  constant,  affected  panegyric,  a  standing  annual  com- 
memoration, to  be  without  any  tendency  to  an  example. 

But  the  leaders  of  party  will  not  go  the  length  of  the  doc- 
trines taught  by  the  seditious  clubs  ?  I  am  sure  they  do  not 
mean  to  do  so.  God  forbid  1  Perhaps  even  those  who  are  di- 
rectly carrying  on  the  work  of  this  pernicious  foreign  faction 
do  not  all  of  them  intend  to  produce  all  the  mischiefs  which 
must  inevitably  follow  from  their  having  any  success  in  their 
proceedings.  As  to  leaders  in  parties,  nothing  is  more  common 
than  to  see  them  blindly  led.  The  world  is  governed  by  go- 
betweens.  These  go-betweens  influence  the  persons  with 
whom  they  carry  on  the  intercourse,  by  stating  their  own  sense 
to  each  of  them  as  the  sense  of  the  other  ;  and  thus  they  recip- 
rocally master  both  sides.  It  is  first  buzzed  about  the  ears  of 
leaders,  that  "their  friends  without-doors  are  very  eager  for 
some  measure,  or  very  warm  about  some  opinion,—  that  you 
must  not  be  too  rigid  with  them.  They  are  useful  persons,  and 
zealous  in  the  cause.  They  may  be  a  little  wrong ;  but  the 
spirit  of  liberty  must  not  be  damped  ;  and,  by  the  influence  yon 
obtain  from  some  degree  of  concurrence  with  them  at  present, 
you  may  be  enabled  to  set  them  right  hereafter." 

Thus  the  leaders  are  at  first  drawn  to  a  connivance  with  senti- 


THE   OLD   AND  THE   XEW   WHIGS.  243 

ments  and  proceedings  often  totally  different  from  their  seri- 
ous and  deliberate  notions.  But  their  acquiescence  answers 
every  purpose. 

With  no  better  than  such  powers,  the  go-betweens  assume  a 
new  representative  character.  What  at  best  was  but  an  acqui- 
escence, is  magnified  into  an  authority,  and  thence  into  a  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  leaders  ;  and  it  is  carried  down  as  such  to  the 
subordinate  members  of  parties.  By  this  artifice  they  in  their 
turn  are  led  into  measures  which  at  first,  perhaps,  few  of 
them  wished  at  all,  or  at  least  did  not  desire  vehemently  or 
systematically. 

There  is  in  all  parties,  between  the  principal  leaders  in  Par- 
liament and  the  lowest  followers  out  of  doors,  a  middle  sort  of 
men,  a  sort  of  equestrian  order,  who,  by  the  spirit  of  that  mid- 
dle situation,  arc  the  fittest  for  preventing  things  from  running 
to  excess.  But  indecision,  though  a  vice  of  a  totally  diit'erent 
character,  is  the  natural  accomplice  of  violence.  The  irresolu- 
tion and  timidity  of  those  who  compose  this  middle  order  often 
prevent  the  elleet  of  their  controlling  situation.  The  fear  of 
differing  with  the  authority  of  leaders  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
contradicting  the  desires  of  the  multitude  on  the  other,  induces 
them  to  give  a  careless  and  passive  assent  to  measures  in  which 
they  never  were  consulted :  and  thus  things  proceed,  by  a  sort 
of  activity  of  inertness,  until  whole  bodies,  leaders,  middle  men, 
and  followers,  an;  all  hurried,  with  every  appearance,  and  with 
many  of  the  effects,  of  unanimity,  into  schemes  of  politics,  in 
the  substance  of  which  no  two  of  them  were  ever  fully  agreed, 
and  the  origin  and  authors  of  which,  in  this  circular  mode  of 
communication,  none  of  them  find  it  possible  to  trace.  In  my 
experience  I  have  seen  much  of  this  in  affairs  which,  though 
trilling  in  comparison  to  the  present,  were  yet  of  some  impor- 
tance to  parties  ;  and  I  have  known  them  suffer  by  it.  The 
sober  part  give  their  sanction,  at  first  through  inattention  and 
levity  ;  at  last  they  give  it  through  necessity.  A  violent  spirit 
is  raised,  which  the  presiding  minds,  after  a  time,  find  it  imprac- 
ticable to  stop  at  their  pleasure,  to  control,  to  regulate,  or  even 
to  direct. 

This  shows,  in  my  opinion,  how  very  quick  and  awaketied  all 
men  ought  to  be,  who  are  looked  up  to  by  the  public,  and-  who 
deserve  that  confidence,  to  prevent  a  surprise  on  their  opinions, 
when  dogmas  are  spread,  and  projects  pursued,  by  which  the 
foundations  of  society  may  be  affected.  Before  they  listen 
even  to  moderate  alterations  in  the  government  of  their  coun- 
try, they  ought  to  take  care  that  principles  are  not  propagated 
for  that  purpose,  which  are  too  big  for  their  object.  Doctrines 
limited  in  their  present  application,  and  wide  in  their  general 


244  BURKE. 

principles,  are  never  meant  to  be  confined  to  what  they  at  first 
pretend.  If  I  were  to  form  a  prognostic  of  the  effect  of  the 
present  machinations  on  the  people  from  their  sense  of  any 
grievance  they  suffer  under  this  Constitution,  my  mind  would 
be  at  case.  But  there  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  multi- 
tude, when  they  act  against  their  government  from  a  sense  of 
grievance,  or  from  zeal  for  some  opinions.  When  men  are 
thoroughly  possessed  with  that  zeal,  it  is  difficult  to  calculate 
its  force.  It  is  certain  that  its  power  is  by  no  means  in  exact 
proportion  to  its  reasonableness.  It  must  always  have  been 
discoverable  by  persons  of  reflection,  but  it  is  now  obvious  to 
the  world,  that  a  theory  concerning  government  may  become  as 
much  a  cause  of  fanaticism  as  a  </'<;////a  in  religion.  There  is  a 
boundary  to  men's  passions  when  they  act  from  feeling  ;  none 
when  they  are  under  the  influence  of  imagination.  Remove  a 
grievance,  and,  when  men  act  from  feeling,  you  go  a  great  way 
towards  quieting  a  commotion.  But  the  good  or  bad  conduct 
of  a  government,  the  protection  men  have  enjoyed,  or  the  op- 
pression they  have  suffered,  under  it,  are  of  no  sort  of  moment, 
when  a  faction,  proceeding  upon  speculative  grounds,  is  thor- 
oughly heated  against  its  form.  When  a  man  is,  from  system, 
furious  against  monarchy  or  episcopacy,  the  good  conduct  of 
the  monarch  or  the  bishop  has  no  other  effect  than  further  to 
irritate  the  adversary.  He  is  provoked  at  it  as  furnishing  a  plea 
for  preserving  the  thing  which  he  wishes  to  destroy.  His  mind 
will  be  heated  as  much  by  the  sight  of  a  sceptre,  a  mace,  or  a 
verge,  as  if  he  had  been  daily  bruised  and  wounded  by  these 
symbols  of  authority.  Mere  spectacles,  mere  names,  will  be- 
come sufficient  causes  to  stimulate  the  people  to  war  and 
tumult. 

Some  gentlemen  are  not  terrified  by  the  facility  with  which 
government  has  been  overturned  in  France.  The  people  of 
France,  they  say,  had  nothing  to  lose  in  the  destruction  of  a 
bad  Constitution  ;  but,  though  not  the  best  possible,  we  have 
still  a  good  stake  in  ours,  which  will  hinder  us  from  desperate 
risks.  Is  this  any  security  at  all  against  those  who  seem  to 
persuade  themselves,  and  who  labour  to  persuade  others,  that 
our  Constitution  is  an  usurpation  in  its  origin,  unwise  in  its 
contrivance,  mischievous  in  its  effects,  contrary  to  the  rights  of 
man,  and  in  all  its  parts  a  perfect  nuisance?  What  motive  has 
any  rational  man,  who  thinks  in  that  manner,  to  spill  his  blood, 
or  even  to  risk  a  shilling  of  his  fortune,  or  to  waste  a  moment 
of  his  leisure,  to  preserve  it?  If  he  has  any  duty  relative  to  it, 
his  duty  is  to  destroy  it.  A  Constitution  on  sufferance  is  a  Con- 
stitution condemned.  Sentence  is  already  passed  upon  it.  The 
execution  is  only  delayed.  On  the  principles  of  these  gentlemen 


THE    OLD    AND  THE  NEW  WHIGS.  245 

it  neither  has  nor  ought  to  have  any  security.  So  far  as  regards 
them,  it  is  left  naked,  without  friends,  partisans,  assertors,  or 
protectors. 

Let  us  examine  into  the  value  of  this  security  upon  the 
principles  of  those  who  are  more  sober ;  of  those  who  think, 
indeed,  the  French  Constitution  better,  or  at  least  as  good,  as 
the  British,  without  going  to  all  the  lengths  of  the  warmer 
politicians  in  reprobating  their  own.  Their  security  amounts 
in  reality  to  nothing  more  than  this,— that  the  difference  be- 
tween their  republican  system  and  the  British  limited  mon- 
archy is  not  worth  a  civil  war.  This  opinion,  I  admit,  will 
prevent  people,  not  very  enterprising  in  their  nature,  from  an 
active  undertaking  against  the  British  Constitution.  But  it  is 
the  poorest  defensive  principle  that  ever  was  infused  into  the 
mind  ot  man  against  the  attempts  of  those  who  will  enterprise. 
It  will  tend  totally  to  remove  from  their  minds  that  very  terror 
of  a  civil  war  which  is  held  out  as  our  sole  security.  They  who 
think  so  well  of  the  French  Constitution  certainly  will  not  be 
the  persons  to  carry  on  a  war  to  prevent  their  obtaining  a 
great  benefit,  or  at  worst  a  fair  exchange.  They  will  not  go  to 
battle  in  favour  of  a  cause  in  which  their  defeat  might  be  more 
advantageous  to  the  public  than  their  victory.  They  must  at 
least  tacitly  abet  those  who  endeavour  to  make  converts  to  a 
sound  opinion  ;  they  must  discountenance  those  who  would 
oppose  its  propagation.  In  proportion  as  by  these  means  the 
enterprising  party  is  strengthened,  the  dread  of  a  struggle  is 
lessened.  See  what  an  encouragement  this  is  to  the  enemies 
of  the  Constitution  !  A  few  assassinations,  and  a  very  great 
destruction  of  property,  we  know  they  consider  as  no  real 
!rs  in  the  way  of  a  grand  political  change.  And  they  will 
hope  that  here,  if  anti-monarchical  opinions  gain  ground,  as 
they  have  done  in  France,  they  may,  as  in  France,  accomplish 
a  revolution  without  a  war. 

They  who  think  so  well  of  the  French  Constitution  cannot  be 
seriously  alarmed  by  any  progress  made  by  its  partisans.  Pro- 
visions for  security  are  not  to  be  received  from  those  who 
think  that  there  is  no  danger.  Ko  !  there  is  no  plan  of  security 
to  be  listened  to  but.  from  those  who  entertain  the  same  fears 
with  ourselves;  from  those  who  think  that  the  thing  to  be 
secured  is  a  great  blessing  ;  and  the  thing  against  which  we 
would  secure  it  a  great  mischief.  Every  person  of  a  different 
opinion  must;  be  careless  about  security. 

I  believe  the  author  of  the  Reflections,  whether  he  fears  the 
<le-  igns  of  that  set  of  people  with  reason  or  not,  cannot  prevail 
on  himself  to  despise,  them.  lie  cannot  despise  them  for  their 
numbers,  which,  though  small  compared  with  the  sound  part 


246  BURKE. 

of  the  community,  are  not  inconsiderable  ;  he  cannot  look  with 
contempt  on  their  influence,  their  activity,  or  the  kind  of  tal- 
ents and  tempers  which  they  possess,  exactly  calculated  for  the 
work  they  have  in  hand,  and  the  minds  they  chiefly  apply  to. 
Do  we  not  see  their  most  considerable  and  accredited  ministers, 
and  several  of  their  party  of  weight  and  importance,  active  in 
spreading  mischievous  opinions,  in  giving  sanction  to  seditious 
writings,  in  promoting  seditious  anniversaries  ?  And  what  part 
of  their  description  has  disowned  them  or  their  proceedings? 
"When  men,  circumstanced  as  these  are,  publicly  declare  such 
admiration  of  a  foreign  Constitution,  and  such  contempt  of  our 
own,  it  would  be,  in  the  author  of  the  Reflections,  thinking  as  he 
does  of  the  French  Constitution,  infamously  to  cheat  the  rest 
of  the  nation  to  their  ruin,  to  say  there  is  no  danger. 

In  estimating  danger,  we  are  obliged  to  take  into  our  calcula- 
tion the  character  and  disposition  of  the  enemy  into  whose 
hands  we  may  chance  to  fall.  The  genius  of  this  faction  is 
easily  discerned,  by  observing  with  what  a  very  different  eye 
they  have  viewed  the  late  foreign  revolutions.  Two  have 
passed  before  them  ;  —  that  of  France  and  that  of  Poland.  The 
state  of  Poland  was  such,  that  there  could  scarcely  exist  two 
opinions,  but  that  a  reformation  of  its  Constitution,  even  at 
some  expense  of  blood,  might  be  seen  without  much  disappro- 
bation. No  confusion  could  be  feared  in  such  an  enterprise, 
because  the  establishment  to  be  reformed  was  it  sell'  a  si 
confusion.  A  king  without  authority  ;  nobles  without  union  or 
subordination  ;  a  people  without  arts,  industry,  commerce,  or 
liberty ;  no  order  within,  no  defence  without ;  no  effective  pub- 
lic force,  but  a  foreign  force,  which  entered  a  naked  country  at 
will,  and  disposed  of  every  thing  at  pleasure.  Here  was  a  state 
of  tilings  which  seemed  to  invite,  and  might  perhaps  justify, 
bold  enterprise  and  desperate  experiment.  But  in  what  man- 
ner was  this  chaos  brought  into  order?  The  means  were  as 
striking  to  the  imagination  as  satisfactory  to  the  reason  and 
soothing  to  the  moral  sentiments.  In  contemplating  that 
change,  humanity  has  every  thing  to  rejoice  and  to  glory  in ; 
nothing  to  be  ashamed  of,  nothing  to  suffer.  So  far  as  it  has 
gone,  it  probably  is  the  most  pure  and  defecated  public  good 
which  ever  has  been  conferred  on  mankind.  We  have 
anarchy  and  servitude  at  once  removed  ;  a  throne  strengthened 
for  the  protection  of  the  people,  without  trenching  on  their  lib- 
erties ;  all  foreign  cabal  banished,  by  changing  the  Crown  from 
elective  to  hereditary  ;  and,  what  was  a  matter  of  pleasing  won- 
der, we  have  seen  a  reigning  king,  from  an  heroic  love  to  his 
country,  exerting  himself  with  all  the  toil,  the  dexterity,  the 
management,  the  intrigue,  in  favour  of  a  family  of  strangers, 


THE   OLD  AKD  THE   XEW   WHIGS.  247 

with  which  ambitious  men  labour  for  the  aggrandizement  of 
their  own.  Ten  millions  of  men  in  a  way  of  being  freed  gradu- 
ally, and  therefore  safely  to  themselves  and  the  State,  not  from 
civil  or  political  chains,  which,  bad  as  they  are,  only  fetter  the 
mind,  but  from  substantial  personal  bondage.  Inhabitants  of 
cities,  before  without  privileges,  placed  in  the  consideration 
which  belongs  to  that  improved  and  connecting  situation  of 
social  life.  One  of  the  most  proud,  numerous,  and  fierce  bodies 
of  nobility  and  gentry  ever  known  in  the  world,  arranged  only 
in  the  foremost  rank  of  free  and  generous  citizens.  Not  one 
man  incurred  loss,  or  suffered  degradation.  All,  from  the  King 
to  the  day-labourer,  were  improved  in  their  condition.  Every 
tiling  was  kept  in  its  place  and  order ;  but  in  that  place  and 
order  every  thing  was  1  lettered.  To  add  to  this  happy  wonder, 
(this  unheard-of  conjunction  of  wisdom  and  fortune,)  not  one 
drop  of  blood  was  spilt ;  no  treachery ;  no  outrage  ;  no  system 
of  slander  more  cruel  than  the  sword  ;  no  studied  insults  on  re- 
ligion, morals,  or  manners  ;  no  spoil ;  no  confiscation ;  no  citi- 
zen beggared;  none  imprisoned;  none  exiled:  the  whole  was 
effected  with  a  policy,  a  discretion,  an  unanimity  and  secresy, 
such  as  have  never  been  before  known  on  any  occasion.  But 
such  wonderful  conduct  was  reserved  for  this  glorious  conspir- 
acy in  favour  of  the  true  and  genuine  rights  and  interests  of 
men.  Happy  people,  if  they  know  how  to  proceed  as  they  have 
begun!  Happy  prince,  worthy  to  begin  with  splendour,  or  to 
close  with  glory,  a  race  of  patriots  and  kings  ;  and  to  leave 

"A  name,  which  every  wind  to  Heaven  would  bear, 
Winch  men  to  speak,  and  angels  joy  to  hear." 

To  finish  all,— this  great  good,  as  in  the  instant  it  is,  contains 
in  it  the  seeds  of  all  further  improvement ;  and  may  be  consid- 
ered as  in  a  regular  progress,  because  founded  on  similar  prin- 
ciples, towards  the  stable  excellency  of  a  British  Constitution.1 
Here  was  a  matter  for  congratulation  and  for  festive  remem- 
brance through  ages.  Here  moralists  and  divines  might  indeed 
relax  in  their  temperance,  to  exhilarate  their  humanity.  But 
mark  the  character  of  our  faction.  All  their  enthusiasm  is  kept 
for  the  French  Revolution.  They  cannot  pretend  that  Franco 
had  stood  so  much  in  need  of  a  change  as  Poland.  They  cannot 
1'iX'teiid  that  Poland  has  not  obtained  a  better  system  of  liberty, 

1  This  splendid  description  seems  too  good  to  be  true;  true  it  is,  however, 
and  later  history  sustains  it.  IJut,  alas!  tho  Constitution  which  promised  so 
much  was  partly  because  ol  that  very  promise,  defeated  by  that  great  crime,  for 
Avhich  the  authors  afterwards  suffered  such  terrible  retributions, «'  the  partition 
ol  Poland," 


248  BURKE. 

or  of  government,  than  it  enjoyed  before.  They  cannot  assert 
that  the  Polish  Revolution  cost  more  dearly  than  that  of  France 
to  the  interests  and  feelings  of  multitudes  of  men.  But  the 
cold  and  subordinate  light  in  which  they  look  upon  the  one, 
and  the  pains  they  take  to  preach  up  the  other,  of  these  Revolu- 
tions, leave  us  no  choice  in  fixing  on  their  motives.  Both  Rev- 
olutions profess  liberty  as  their  object;  but  in  obtaining  this 
object  the  one  proceeds  from  anarchy  to  order  ;  the  other,  from 
order  to  anarchy.  The  first  secures  its  liberty  by  establishing 
its  throne  ;  the  other  builds  its  freedom  on  the  subversion  of  its 
monarchy.  In  the  one  their  means  are  unstained  by  crimes, 
and  their  settlement  favours  morality.  In  the  other  vice  and 
confusion  are  in  the  very  essence  of  their  pursuit  and  of  their 
enjoyment.  The  circumstances  in  which  these  two  events  differ 
must  cause  the  difference  we  make  in  their  comparative  estima- 
tion. These  turn  the  scale  with  the  Societies  in  favour  of 
France.  Ferrum  est  quod  amant.*  The  frauds,  the  violences, 
the  sacrileges,  the  havoc  and  ruin  of  families,  the  dispersion 
and  exile  of  the  prido  and  flower  of  a  great  country,  the  dis- 
order, the  confusion,  the  anarchy,  the  violation  of  property,  the 
cruel  murders,  the  inhuman  confiscations,  and  in  the  end  the 
insolent  domination  of  bloody,  ferocious,  and  senseless  clul-s,— 
these  are  the  things  which  they  love  and  admire.  What  men 
admire  and  love,  they  would  surely  act.  Let  us  see  what  is 
done  in  France;  and  then  let  us  undervalue  any  the  slightest 
danger  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  such  a  merciless  and  sa\  ;mv 
faction ! 3 


A  LETTER  TO  A  NOBLE  LORD.* 

MY  LORD:  I  could  hardly  flatter  myself  with  the  hope,  that 
so  very  early  in  the  season  I  should  have  to  acknowledge  obli- 

2  The  sword  is  what  they  love;  or,  pei'haps,  the  guillotine. 

3  The  Appeal  did  not  command  so  largo  a  circulation  as  the  Reflections,  but  it 
thoroughly  rounded  ofi'  the  whole  question;  and  its  popularity  was  B 
withal,  as  to  throw  into  the  shade  every  other  publication  of  the  time.    The 
King,  it  is  said,  was  even  more  pleased  with  it  than  wuh  the  L't-.tlt'ction* :  «>n 
reading  it,  his  inveterate  prejudices  against  the  author  were  fairly  overcome; 
and  when  Burke,  according  to  the  rules  of  ollirial  etiquette',  appeared  at  his 
levee,  the  King  welcomed  him  with  his  most  gracious  smile,  and  converM-d 
with  him  a  long  time,  while  many  titled  by.-tanders  looked  in  vain  fur  a  royal 
recognition. 

4  The  full  title  of  this  piece,  as  originally  published,  is,  "  A  Letter  from  the 
Kight-llon.  Edmund  Burke,  to  a  Noble  Lord,  on  the  Attacks  made  upon  him  and 
his  Pension,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  by  the  Duke  of  Bedford  and  the  Earl  of  Lau- 


A  LETTER  TO   A   XOBLE  LORD.  240 

gations  to  the  Duke  of  BEDFORD  and  to  the  Earl  of  LAUDER- 
DALE.  These  noble  persons  have  lost  no  time  in  conferring 
upon  me  that  sort  of  honour  which  it  is  alone  within  their  com- 
petence, and  which  it  is  certainly  most  congenial  to  their  nature 
and  to  their  manners,  to  bestow. 

To  be  ill  spoken  of,  in  whatever  language  they  speak,  by  the 
zealots  of  the  new  sect  in  philosophy  and  politics,  of  which 
these  noble  persons  think  so  charitably,  and  of  which  others 
think  so  justly,  to  me  is  no  matter  of  uneasiness  or  surprise. 
To  have  incurred  the  displeasure  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  or  the 
Duke  of  Bedford,  to  fall  under  the  censure  of  citizen  Brissot  or 
of  his  friend  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale,  I  ought  to  consider  as 
proofs,  not  the  least  satisfactory,  that  I  have  produced  some 
part  of  the  effect  I  proposed  by  my  endeavours.  I  have  la- 
boured hard  to  earn  what  the  noble  lords  are  generous  enough 
to  pay.  Personal  offence  I  have  given  them  none.  The  part 
they  take  against  me  is  from  zeal  t<>  the  cause.  It  is  well  1  It 
is  perfectly  well  !  I  have  to  do  homage  to  their  justice.  I  have 
to  thank  the  Bedfords  and  the  Lauderdales  for  having  so  faith- 
fully and  so  fully  acquitted  towards  mo  whatever  arrear  of  debt 
was  left  undischarged  by  the  Priest  leys  and  the  Paines. 

*ome,  perhaps,  may  think  them  executors  in  their  own  wrong: 
I  at  least  have  nothing  to  complain  of.  They  have  gone  beyond 
the  demands  of  justice.  They  have  been  (a  little  perhaps  be- 
yond their  intention)  favourable  to  me.  They  have  been  the 
means  of  bringing  out,  by  their  invectives,  the  handsome  things 
which  Lord  Grenville  has  had  the  goodness  and  condescension 
to  say  in  my  behalf.  Retired  as  I  am  from  the  world,  and  from 
all  its  affairs  and  all  its  pleasures,  I  confess  it  does  kindle,  in 
my  nearly  extinguished  feelings,  a  very  vivid  satisfaction  to  be 
so  attacked  and  so  commended.  It  is  soothing  to  my  wounded 
mir.d  to  be  commended  by  an  able,  vigorous,  and  well-informed 
::iun,  and  at  the  very  moment  when  he  stands  forth  with 
a  manliness  and  resolution,  worthy  of  himself  and  of  his  cause, 
for  the  preservation  of  the  person  and  government  of  our  sov- 
ereign, and  therein  for  the  security  of  the  laws,  the  liberties,  (lie 
morals,  and  the  lives  of  his  people.  To  be  in  any  fair  way  con- 
nected with  such  things  is  indeed  a  distinction.  No  philosophy 
can  make  me  above  it :  no  melancholy  can  depress  me  so  low, 
make  me  wholly  insensible  to  such  an  honour. 

derdale,  rarly  in  the  present  Session  of  Parliament.  1790."  — With  a  majorily 
of  Utirke's  reader.-*  tlii.s  is  probahly  the  favourite  of  his  works,  and  the  OIK; 
•which  they  read  oileiiest.  The  distinguished  lawyer  and  orator,  Itiilus  Choatc, 
:i  man  <>f  ex'piisi'e  taste,  and  who  had  his  mind  stored  with  the  ehoieest  learn- 
in;,'-,  ancient  and  modern,  once  said  to  me,  "  I  have  to  read  Burke's  Letter  to  a 
Noble  Lord  once  a-quarter;  I  get  sick,  if  I  don't." 


250  BURKE. 

"Why  will  they  not  let  me  remain  in  obscurity  and  inaction  ? 
Are  they  apprehensive  that,  if  an  atom  of  me  remains,  the  sect 
has  something  to  fear?  Must  I  be  annihilated,  lest,  like  old 
John  Zisca's,6  my  skin  might  be  made  into  a  drum,  to  animate 
Europe  to  eternal  battle  against  a  tyranny  that  threatens  to 
overwhelm  all  Europe,  and  all  the  human  race? 

My  Lord,  it  is  a  subject  of  awful  meditation.  Before  this  of 
France,  the  annals  of  all  time  have  not  furnished  an  instance  of 
a  complete  revolution.  That  Revolution  seems  to  have  extended 
even  to  the  constitution  of  the  mind  of  man.  It  has  this  of 
wonderful  in  it,  that  it  resembles  what  Lord  Yerulam  says  of 
the  operations  of  Nature.  It  was  perfect,  not  only  in  its  ele- 
ments and  principles,  but  in  all  its  members  and  its  organs  from 
the  very  beginning.  The  moral  scheme  of  France  furnishes  the 
only  pattern  ever  known,  which  they  who  admire  will  instanlli/ 
resemble.  It  is  indeed  an  inexhaustible  repertory  of  one  kind 
of  examples.  In  my  wretched  condition,  though  hardly  to  be 
classed  with  the  living,  I  am  not  safe  from  them.  They  have 
tigers  to  fall  upon  animated  strength.  They  have  hyenas  to 
prey  upon  carcasses.  The  national  menagerie  is  collected  by 
the  first  physiologists  of  the  time  ;  and  it  is  defective  in  no 
description  of  savage  nature.  They  pursue  even  such  as  me 
into  the  obscurest  retreats,  and  haul  them  before  their  revolu- 
tionary tribunals.  Neither  sex,  nor  age,  nor  the  sanctuary  of 
the  tomb,  is  sacred  to  them.  They  have  so  determined  a 
hatred  to  all  privileged  orders,  that  they  deny  even  to  the 
departed  the  sad  immunities  of  the  grave.  They  are  not 
wholly  without  an  object.  Their  turpitude  purveys  to  their 
malice ;  and  they  unplumb  the  dead  for  bullets  to  assassinate 
the  living.  If  all  revolutionists  were  not  proof  against  all  cau- 
tion, I  should  recommend  it  to  their  consideration,  that  no 
persons  were  ever  known  in  history,  either  sacred  or  profane, 
to  vex  the  sepulchre,  and,  by  their  sorceries,  to  call  up  the 
prophetic  dead,  witli  any  other  event  than  the  prediction  of 
their  own  disastrous  fate, — "  Leave  me,  O,  leave  me  to  repose  ! " 

In  one  thing  I  can  excuse  the  Duke  of  Bedford  for  his  attack 
upon  me  and  my  mortuary  pension.  lie  cannot  readily  com- 
prehend the  transaction  he  condemns.  What  I  have  obtained 
was  the  fruit  of  no  bargain  ;  the  production  of  no  intrigue  ;  the 

5  The  reformers,  known  in  Church  history  as  the  Hussites,  were  divided  into 
two  parties,  called  the  Calixtlncs  and  the  Taborites.  The  latter  was  the  more 
vigorous,  or  the  radical,  party,  and  had  John  Zisca  for  its  leader.  He  died  in 
1424,  and  his  followers  were  so  east  down  at  his  death,  that  they  called  them- 
selves OrpJians.  He  was  for  waging  a  \\*ar  of  extermination  against  the  Catho- 
lics ;  and  this  lanatieal  zeal  caused  him  To  wish  that  his  skin  might  be  made  into 
a  drum-head,  to  animate  the  battles  of  oilhodoxy. 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  251 

result  of  no  compromise ;  the  effect  of  no  solicitation.  The 
first  suggestion  of  it  never  came  from  me,  mediately  or  immedi- 
ately,, to  his  Majesty  or  any  of  his  Ministers.  It  was  long 
known  that  the  instant  my  engagements  would  permit  it,  and 
befoie  the  heaviest  of  all  calamities  had  for  ever  condemned 
me  to  obscurity  and  sorrow,  I  had  resolved  on  a  total  retreat. 
I  had  executed  that  design.  I  was  entirely  out  of  the  way  of 
serving  or  of  hurting  any  statesman,  or  any  party,  when  the 
Ministers  so  generously  and  so  nobly  carried  into  effect  the 
spontaneous  bounty  of  the  Crown.  Both  descriptions  have 
acted  as  became  them.  When  I  could  no  longer  serve  thorn, 
the  Ministers  have  considered  my  situation.  When  I  could  no 
longer  hurt  them,  the  revolutionists  have  trampled  on  my 
infirmity.  My  gratitude,  I  trust,  is  equal  to  the  manner  in 
which  the  benefit  was  conferred.  It  came  to  me  indeed  at  a 
time  of  life,  and  in  a  state  of  mind  and  body,  in  which  no  cir- 
cumstance of  fortune  could  afford  me  any  real  pleasure.  Hut 
this  was  no  fault  in  the  royal  donor,  or  in  his  Ministers,  who 
were  pleased,  in  acknowledging  the  merits  of  an  invalid  servant, 
of  the  public,  to  assuage  the  sorrows  of  a  desolate  old  man. 

It  would  ill  become  me  to  boast  of  any  thing.  It  would  as  ill 
become  me,  thus  called  upon,  to  depreciate  the  value  of  a  long 
life,  spent  with  unexampled  toil  in  the  service  of  my  country. 
Since  the  total  body  of  my  services,  on  account  of  the  industry 
which  was  ,*hown  in  them,  and  the  fairness  of  my  intentions, 
have  obtained  the  acceptance  of  my  sovereign,  it  would  be  ab- 
surd in  me  to  range  myself  on  the  side  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford 
and  the  Corresponding  Society,  or,  as  far  as  in  me  lies,  to  per- 
mit a  dispute  on  the  rate  at  which  the  authority  appointed  by 
our  Constitution  to  estimate  such  things  has  been  pleased  to  set 
them, 

Loose  libels  ought  to  be  passed  by  in  silence  and  contempt. 
By  me  they  have  been  so  always.    I  knew  that,  as  long  as  I  re- 
mained in  public,  I  should  live  down  the  calumnies  of  malice 
,in(l  the  judgments  of  ignorance.    If  I  happened  to  be  now  and 
then  in  the  wrong,  (as  who  is  not?)  like  all  other  men,  I  must 
bear  the  consequence  of  my  faults  and  my  mistakes.    The  libels 
present  (lay  are  jus*t  of  the  same  stuff  as  the  libels  of  the 
But.  they  derive  an  importance  from  the  rank  of  the  per- 
sons they  come  from,  and  the  gravity  of  the  place  where  they 
were  uttered.     In  some  way  or  other  I  ought  to  take  some 
of  them.    To  assert  myself  thus  traduced  is  not  vanity  or 
arrogance.    It  is  a  demand  of  justice  ;  it  is  a  demonstration  of 
gratitude.     If  I  am  unworthy,  the  Ministers  are  worse  than 
prodigal.    On  that  hypothesis,  I  perfectly  agree  with  the  Duke 
of  Bedford. 


252  BURKE. 

For  whatever  I  have  been  (I  am  now  no  more)  I  put  myself 
on  my  country.  I  ought  to  be  allowed  a  reasonable  freedom, 
because  I  stand  upon  my  deliverance  ;  and  no  culprit  ought  to 
plead  in  irons.  Even  in  the  utmost  latitude  of  defensive  lib- 
erty, I  wish  to  preserve  all  possible  decorum.  Whatever  it  may 
be  in  the  eyes  of  these  noble  persons  themselves,  to  me  their 
situation  calls  for  the  most  profound  respect.  If  I  should  hap- 
pen to  trespass  a  little,  which  I  trust  I  shall  not,  let  it  always  be 
supposed,  that  a  confusion  of  characters  may  produce  mistakes; 
that,  in  the  masquerades  of  the  grand  carnival  of  our  ago, 
whimsical  adventures  happen  ;  odd  things  are  said  and  pa^s  oil'. 
If  I  should  fail  a  single  point  in  the  high  respect  I  owe  to  thu.se 
illustrious  persons,  I  cannot  be  supposed  to  mean  the  Duke  of 
Bedford  and  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale  of  the  House  of  Peers,  but 
the  Duke  of  Bedford  and  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale  of  Palace- 
Yard  1 —  the  Dukes  and  Earls  of  Brentford.  There  they  are 
on  the  pavement ;  there  they  seem  to  come  nearer  to  my  hum- 
ble level ;  and,  virtually  at  least,  to  have  waived  their  high 
privilege. 

flaking  this  protestation,  I  refuse  all  revolutionary  tribunals, 
where  men  have  been  put  to  death  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  they  had  obtained  favours  from  the  Crown.  I  claim,  not 
the  letter,  but  the  spirit,  of  the  old  English  law,  that  is,  to  be 
tried  by  my  peers.  I  decline  his  Grace's  jurisdiction  as  a  judge. 
I  challenge  the  Duke  of  Bedford  as  a  juror  to  pass  upon  the 
value  of  my  services.  Whatever  his  natural  parts  may  be,  I 
cannot  recognize,  in  his  few  and  idle  years,  the  competence  to 
judge  of  my  long  and  laborious  life.  If  I  can  help  it,  he  shall 
not  be  on  the  inquest  of  my  <i\m  nlinn  nxrnit.  Poor  rich  man! 
lie  can  hardly  know  anything  of  public  industry  in  its  exer- 
tions, or  can  estimate  its  compensations  when  its  work  is  done. 
I  have  no  doubt  of  his  Grace's  readiness  in  all  the  calculations 
of  vulgar  arithmetic  :  but  I  shrewdly  suspect  that  he  is  little 
studied  in  the  theory  of  moral  proportions  ;  and  has  ne.ver 
learned  the  rule-of-three  in  the  arithmetic  of  policy  and  State. 

His  Grace  thinks  I  have  obtained  too  much.  I  answer,  that 
my  exertions,  whatever  they  have  been,  were  such  as  no  hopes 
of  pecuniary  reward  could  possibly  excite  ;  and  no  pecuniary 
compensation  can  possibly  reward  them.  Between  money  and 
such  services,  if  done  by  abler  men  than  I  am,  there  is  no  com- 
mon principle  of  comparison  ;  they  are  quantities  incommens- 
urable. Money  is  made  for  the  comfort  and  convenience  ot' 
animal  life.  It  cannot  be  a  reward  for  what  more  animal  life 
must  indeed  sustain,  but  never  can  inspire.  With  submission 
to  his  Grace,  I  have  not  had  more  than  sufficient.  As  to  any 
noble  use,  I  trust  I  know  how  to  employ,  as  well  as  he,  a  much 


A   LETTER  TO  A   KOBLE  LORD.  253 

greater  fortune  than  he  possesses.  In  a  more  confined  applica- 
tion, I  certainly  stand  in  need  of  every  kind  of  relief  and  ease- 
ment much  more  than  he  does.  When  I  say  I  have  not 
received  more  than  I  deserve,  is  this  the  language  I  hold  to 
Majesty?  No  I  Far,  very  far  from  it!  Before  that  presence, 
I  claim  no  merit  at  all.  Every  thing  towards  me  is  favour  and 
bounty.  One  style  to  a  gracious  benefactor;  another  to  a 
proud  and  insulting  foe. 

His  Grace  is  pleased  to  aggravate  my  guilt,  by  charging  my 
acceptance  of  his  Majesty's  grant  as  a  departure  from  my  ideas, 
and  the  spirit  of  my  conduct  with  regard  to  economy.  If  it  be, 
my  ideas  of  economy  wore  falso  and  ill-founded.  But  they  are 
the  Duko  of  Bedford's  ideas  of  economy  I  have  contradicted, 
nnd  not  my  own.  If  he  means  to  allude  to  certain  bills  brought 
in  by  mo  on  a  message  from  the  throne  in  1782,  I  tell  him  that 
them  is  nothing  in  my  conduct  that  can  contradict  either  the 
letter  or  the  spirit  of  those  Acts.  Docs  he  mean  the  pay-office 
Act  ?  I  take  it  for  granted  lie  does  not.  The  Act  to  which  he 
alludes  is,  I  suppose,  the  establishment  Act.  I  greatly  doubt 
•whether  hi*  tlruco  has  ever  road  the  one  or  the  other.  The 
first  of  these  systems  cost  mo,  with  every  assistance  which  my 
then  situation  gave  me,  pains  incredible.  I  found  an  opinion 
common  through  all  the  ollices,  and  general  in  the  public  at 
large,  that  It  Would  prove  impossible  to  reform  and  methodize 
the  office  of  payin  ,eral.  I  undertook  it,  however;  and 

I  succeeded  in  my  undertaking.  Whether  the  military  service, 
or  whether  the-  general  economy  of  our  finances,  has  profited 
by  that  Act,  I  leave  to  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  army, 
and  with  the  treasury,  to  judge. 

An  opinion  full  as  general  prevailed  also  at  the  same  time, 
that  nothing  could  be  done  for  the  regulation  of  the  civil-list  es- 
tablishment. The  very  attempt  to  introduce  method  into  it,  and 
any  limitations  to  its  services,  was  held  absurd.  I  had  not  seen 
the  man  whoso  much  as  suggested  one  economical  principle,  or 
an  economical  expedient,  upon  that  subject.  Nothing  but 
ronrso  amputation,  or  coarser  taxation,  were  then  talked  of, 
both  of  thorn  without  design,  combination,  or  the  least  shadow 
of  principle.  Blind  and  headlong  zeal,  or  factious  fury,  were 
the  whole  contribution  brought  by  the  most  noisy  on  that  occa- 
towards  the  satisfaction  of  the  public,  or  the  relief  of  the 
Crown. 

Let  me  toll  my  youthful  censor,  that  the  necessities  of  that 
time  required  something  very  different  from  what  others  then 
suggested,  or  what  his  Grace  now  conceives.  Let  me  inform 
him  that  it  was  one  of  the  most  critical  periods  in  our  annals. 

Astronomers  have  supposed  that,  if  a  certain  comet,  whose 


254  BURKE. 

path  intercepted  the  ecliptic,  had  met  the  Earth  in  some  (I  for- 
get  what)  sign,  it  would  have  whirled  us  along  with  it,  in  its 
eccentric  course,  into  God  knows  what  regions  of  heat  and  cold. 
Had  the  portentous  comet  of  the  rights  of  man,  (which  "from 
its  horrid  hair  shakes  pestilence  and  war,"  and  "with  fear  of 
change  perplexes  monarchs,")  had  that  comet  crossed  upon  us 
in  that  internal  state  of  England,  nothing  human  could  have 
prevented  our  being  irresistibly  hurried  out  of  the  highway  of 
heaven  into  all  the  vices,  crimes,  horrors,  and  miseries  of  the 
French  Revolution. 

Happily,  France  was  not  then  Jacobinized.  Her  hostility  was 
at  a  good  distance.  We  had  a  limb  cut  off  ;  but  we  preserved 
the  body.  We  lost  our  colonies  ;  but  we  kept  our  Constitution. 
There  was,  indeed,  much  intestine 'heat ;  there  was  a  dreadful 
fermentation.  Wild  and  savage  insurrection  quitted  the  woods, 
and  prowled  about  our  streets  in  the  name  of  reform.  Such 
was  the  distemper  of  the  public  mind,  that  there  was  no  mad- 
man, in  his  maddest  ideas  and  maddest  projects,  who  might 
not  count  upon  numbers  to  support  his  principles  and  execute 
his  designs. 

Many  of  the  changes,  by  a  great  misnomer  called  parliamen- 
tary reforms,  went/not  in  the  intention  of  all  the  professors  and 
supporters  of  them,  undoubtedly,  but  went  in  their  certain, 
and,  in  my  opinion,  not  very  remote  effect,  home  to  the  utter 
destruction  of  the  Constitution  of  this  kingdom.  Had  they 
taken  place,  not  France,  but  England,  would  have  had  the  hon- 
our of  leading  up  the  death-dance  of  democratic  revolution. 
Other  projects,  exactly  coincident  in  time  with  those,  struck 
at  the  very  existence  of  the  kingdom  under  any  constitution. 
There  are  who  remember  the  blind  fury  of  some,  and  the 
lamentable  helplessness  of  others  ;  here,  a  torpid  confusion, 
from  a  panic  fear  of  the  danger ;  there,  the  same  inaction  from 
a  stupid  insensibility  to  it;  here,  well-wishers  to  the  mischief; 
there,  indifferent  lookers-on.  At  the  same  time  a  sort  of  na- 
tional convention,  dubious  in  its  nature,  and  perilous  in  its  ex- 
ample, nosed  Parliament  in  the  very  seat  of  its  authority;  sat 
with  a  sort  of  superintendence  over  it ;  and  little  less  than  dic- 
tated to  it,  not  only  laws,  but  the  very  form  and  essence  of  leg- 
islature itself.  In  Ireland  things  ran  in  a  still  more  eccentric 
course.  Government  was  unnerved,  confounded,  and  in  a  man- 
ner suspended.  Its  equipoise  was  totally  gone.  I  do  not  mean 
to  speak  disrespectfully  of  Lord  North.  He  was  a  man  of  ad- 
mirable parts ;  of  general  knowledge  ;  of  a  versatile  under- 
standing iitted  for  every  sort-  of  business ;  of  infinite  wit  and 
pleasantry  ;  of  a  delightful  temper ;  and  with  a  mind  most  per- 
fectly disinterested.  But  it  would  be  only  to  degrade  myself 


A   LETTER  TO   A   KOBLE   LORD.  255 

by  a  weak  adulation,  and  not  to  honour  the  memory  of  a  great 
man,  to  deny  that  he  wanted  something  of  the  vigilance  and 
spirit  of  command  that  the  time  required.  Indeed,  a  darkness, 
next  to  the  fog  of  this  awful  day,  loured  over  the  whole  region. 
For  a  little  time  the  helm  appeared  abandoned: 

Ipse  diem  noctcmque  negat  rtisoernere  coelo, 
Nee  mcminissc  viae  media  Paliuurus  in  unda.» 

At  that  time  I  was  connected  with  men  of  high  place  in  the 
community.  They  loved  liberty  as  much  as  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford can  do  ;  and  they  understood  it  at  least  as  well.  Perhaps 
their  politics,  as  usual,  took  a  tincture  from  their  character,  and 
they  cultivated  what  they  lo*ved.  The  liberty  they  pursued  was 
a  liberty  inseparable  from  order,  from  virtue,  from  morals,  and 
from  religion  ;  and  was  neither  hypocritically  nor  fanatically 
followed.  They  did  not  wish  that  liberty,  in  itself  one  of  the 
first  of  blessings,  should  in  its  perversion  become  the  greatest 
curse  which  could  fall  upon  mankind.  To  preserve  the  Consti- 
tution entire,  and  practically  equal  to  all  the  great  ends  of  its 
formation,  not  in  one  single  part,  but  in  all  its  parts,  was  to  them, 
the  first  object.  Popularity  and  power  they  regarded  alike. 
These  were  with  them  only  different  means  of  obtaining  that 
object,  and  had  no  preference  over  each  other  in  their  minds, 
but  as  one  or  the  other  might  afford  a  surer  or  a  less  certain 
prospect  of  arriving  at  that  end.  It  is  some  consolation  to  me 
in  the  cheerless  gloom  which  darkens  the  evening  of  my  life, 
that  with  them  I  commenced  my  political  career,  and  never  for 
a  moment,  in  reality,  nor  in  appearance,  for  any  length  of  time, 
• -pa rated  from  their  good  wishes  and  good  opinion. 

By  what  accident  it  matters  not,  nor  upon  what  desert,  but 
just  then,  and  in  the  midst  of  that  hunt  of  obloquy  which  ever 
has  pursued  me  with  a  full  cry  through  life,  I  had  obtained  a 
very  considerable  degree  of  public  confidence.  I  know  well 
enough  how  equivocal  a  test  this  kind  of  popular  opinion  forms 
of  the  merit  1  hat  obtained  it.  I  am  no  stranger  to  the  insecurity 
of  its  tenure.  I  do  not  boast  of  it.  It  is  mentioned  to  show,  not 
how  highly  I  prize  the  thing,  but  my  right  to  value  the  use  I 
made  of  it.  I  endeavoured  to  turn  that  short-lived  advantage 
to  myself  into  a  permanent  benefit  to  my  country.  Far  am  I 
from  detracting  from  the  merit  of  some  gentlemen,  out  of  office 
or  in  it,  on  that  occasion.  No!  —  It  is  not  my  way  to  refuse  a 
full  and  heaped  measure  of  justice  to  the  aids  that  I  receive.  I 

C  "Palinurus  himself  declared  ho  could  not  distinguish  between  day  and 
night  in  the  sky,  nor  remember  hi8  course  through  the  deep."  Palinurus  is  the 
veteran  and  skilful  pilot  whom  JEne&a  has  at  the  helm  of  his  ship,  in  Virgil. 


256  BURKE. 

have,  through  life,  been  willing  to  give  every  thing  to  others  ; 
and  to  reserve  nothing  for  myself  but  the  inward  conscience, 
that  I  had  omitted  no  pains  to  discover,  to  animate,  to  discipline, 
to  direct  the  abilities  of  the  country  for  its  service,  and  to  place 
them  in  the  best  light  to  improve  their  age,  or  to  adorn  it.  This 
conscience  I  have.  I  have  never  suppressed  any  man ;  never 
checked  him  for  a  moment  in  his  course,  by  any  jealousy,  or  by 
any  policy.  I  was  always  ready,  to  the  height  of  my  means, 
(and  they  were  always  infinitely  below  my  desires,)  to  forward 
those  abilities  which  overpowered  my  own.  He  is  an  ill- 
furnished  undertaker,  who  has  no  machinery  but  his  own 
hands  to  work  with.  Poor  in  my  own  faculties,  I  ever  thought 
myself  rich  in  theirs.  In  that  period  of  difficulty  and  danger, 
more  especially,  I  consulted,  and  sincerely  cooperated  with, 
men  of  all  parties  who  seemed  disposed  to  the  same  ends,  or  to 
any  main  part  of  them.  Nothing  to  prevent  disorder  was  omit- 
ted: when  it  appraivd,  nothing  to  subdue  it  was  loft  uncoun- 
selled,  nor  unexecuted,  as  far  as  I  could  prevail.  At  the  time  I 
speak  of,  and  having  a  momentary  lead,  so  aided  and  so  encour- 
aged, and  as  a  feeble  instrument  in  a  mighty  hand,— I  do  not 
say  I  saved  my  country  ;  I  am  sure  I  did  my  country  important 
service.  There  were  few  indeed  that  did  not  at  that  time  ac- 
knowledge it,  and  that  time  was  thirteen  years  ago.  It  was  but 
one  voice,  that  no  man  in  the  kingdom  better  deserved  an  hon- 
ourable provision  should  be  made  for  him. 

So  much  for  my  general  conduct  through  the  whole  of  the 
portentous  crisis  from  1780  to  1782,  and  the  general  sense  then 
entertained  of  that  conduct  by  my  country.  But  my  character, 
as  a  reformer,  in  the  particular  instances  which  the  Duke  of 
Bedford  refers  to,  is  so  connected  in  principle  with  my  opinions 
on  the  hideous  changes  which  have  since  barbarized  France, 
and,  spreading  thence,  threaten  the  political  and  moral  order  of 
the  whole  world,  that  it  seems  to  demand  something  of  a  more 
detailed  discussion. 

My  economical  reforms  were  not,  as  his  Grace  may  think, 
the  suppression  of  a  paltry  pension  or  employment,  more  or 
less.  Economy  in  my  plans  was,  as  it  ought  to  be,  secondary, 
subordinate,  instrumental.  I  acted  on  State  principl* 
found  a  great  distemper  in  the  commonwealth  ;  and,  according 
to  the  nature  of  the  evil  and  of  the  object,  I  treated  it.  The 
malady  was  deep  ;  it  was  complicated,  in  the  causes  and  in  the 
symptoms.  Throughout  it  was  full  of  contra-indicants.  On 
one  hand  government,  daily  growing  more  invidious  from  an 
apparent  increase  of  the  means  of  strength,  was  every  day 
growing  more  contemptible  by  real  weakness.  Xor  was  this 
dissolution  confined  to  government  commonly  so  called.  It 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  257 

extended  to  Parliament ;  which  was  losing  not  a  little  in  its 
dignity  and  estimation,  by  an  opinion  of  its  not  acting  on 
worthy  motives.  On  the  other  hand,  the  desires  of  the  people 
(partly  natural  and  partly  infused  into  them  by  art)  appeared 
in  so  wild  and  inconsiderate  a  manner,  with  regard  to  the 
economical  object,  (for  I  set  aside  for  a  moment  the  dreadful 
tampering  with  the  body  of  the  Constitution  itself,)  that,  if 
their  petitions  had  literally  been  complied  with,  the  State 
would  have  been  convulsed  ;  and  a  gate  would  have  been 
opened,  through  which  all  property  might  be  sacked  and  rav- 
aged. Nothing  could  have  saved  the  public  from  the  mischiefs 
of  the  false  reform  but  its  absurdity  ;  which  would  soon  have 
brought  itself,  and  with  it  all  real  reform,  into  discredit.  This 
would  have  left  a  rankling  wound  in  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
who  would  know  they  had  failed  in  the  accomplishment  of 
their  wishes,  but  who,  like  the  rest  of  mankind  in  all  ages, 
would  impute  the  blame  to  any  thing  rather  than  to  their 
own  proceedings.  But  there  were  then  persons  in  the  world 
who  nourished  complaint,  and  would  have  been  thoroughly 
disappointed  if  the  people  were  ever  satisfied.  I  was  not  of 
that  humour.  I  wished  that  they  should  be  satisfied.  It  was 
my  aim  to  give  to  the  people  the  substance  of  what  I  knew  they 
<!,  and  what  I  thought  was  right,  whether  they  desired  it 
or  not,  before  it  had  been  modified  for  them  into  senseless 
petitions.  I  knew  that  there  is  a  manifest,  marked  distinction, 
which  ill  men  with  ill  designs,  or  weak  men  incapable  of  any 
design,  will  constantly  be  confounding,  that  is,  a  marked  dis- 
tinction between  change  and  reformation.  The  former  alters 
the  substance  of  the  objects  themselves ;  and  gets  rid  of  all 
their  essential  good,  as  well  as  of  all  the  accidental  evil,  an- 
nexed to  them.  Change  is  novelty ;  and  whether  it  is  to  op- 
erate any  one  of  the  effects  of  reformation  at  all,  or  whether  it 
may  not  contradict  the  very  principle  upon  which  reformation 
is  desired,  cannot  be  certainly  known  beforehand.  Reform  is, 
not  a  change  in  the  substance,  or  in  the  primary  modification, 
of  the  object,  but  a  direct  application  of  a  remedy  to  the 
grievance  complained  of.  So  far  as  that  is  removed,  all  is  sure. 
It  stops  there ;  and,  if  it  fails,  the  substance  which  underwent 

•  oration,  at  the  very  worst,  is  but  where  it  was. 
All  this,  in  effect,  I  think,  but  am  not  sure,  I  have  said 
liere.    It  cannot  at  this  time  be  too  often  repeated,— line 
upon  line,  precept  upon  precept,— until  it  comes  into  the  cur- 
rency of  a  proverb,  to  innovate  is  not  to  reform.    The  French 
revolutionists    complained  of   every  thing ;    they   refused   to 
reform  any  thing ;    and  they  left  nothing,  no,  nothing  at  all 
unchanged.    The  consequences  are  before  us, —  not  in  remote 


258  BURKE. 

history ;  not  in  future  prognostication :  they  are  about  us  ; 
they  are  upon  us.  They  shake  the  public  security ;  they  menace 
private  enjoyment.  They  dwarf  the  growth  of  the  young  ;  they 
break  the  quiet  of  the  old.  If  we  travel,  they  stop  our  way. 
They  infest  us  in  town  ;  they  pursue  us  to  the  country.  Our 
business  is  interrupted ;  our  repose  is  troubled ;  our  pleasures 
are  saddened  ;  our  very  studies  are  poisoned  and  perverted,  and 
knowledge  is  rendered  worse  than  ignorance,  by  the  enormous 
evils  of  this  dreadful  innovation.  The  revolution  harpies  of 
Prance,  sprung  from  night  and  Hell,  or  from  that  chaotic  anar- 
chy which  generates  equivocally  "all  monstrous,  all  prodigious 
things,"  cuckoo-like,  adulterously  lay  their  eggs,  and  brood  over 
and  hatch  them  in  the  nest  of  every  neighbouring  State.7  These 
obscene  harpies,  who  deck  themselves  in  I  know  not  what  divine 
attributes,  but  who  in  reality  arc  foul  and  ravenous  birds  of 
prey,  (both  mothers  and  daughters,)  flutter  over  our  heads,  and 
souse  down  upon  our  table?,  and  leave  nothing  unrent,  unruled, 
unravaged,  or  unpolluted  with  the  slime  of  their  filthy  offal.8 

If  his  Grace  can  contemplate  the  result  of  this  complete  inno- 
vation, or,  as  some  friends  of  his  will  call  it,  reform,  in  the  whole 
body  of  its  solidity  and  compounded  mass,  at  which,  as  Hamlet 
says,  the  face  of  heaven  glows  with  horror  and  indignation,  and 
which,  in  truth,  makes  every  reflecting  mind  and  every  feeling 
heart  perfectly  thought-sick,  without  a  thorough  abhorrence  of 

7  Alluding  to  the  naughty  trick,  which  the  cnckoo  was  said  to  have,  of  de- 
stroying the  hedge-sparrow's  eggs,  and  laying  her  own  in  the  nest,  for  the  spar- 
row to  hatch;  the  honest  bird  then  feeding  the  cuckoo  chicks  as  her  own,  till 
scared  away  by  their  quenchless  voracity.  So  in  the  First  Part  of  King  Henry 
the  Fourth,  v.  1 : 

"  And,  being  fed  by  us,  you  used  us  so 
As  that  ungentle  gull,  the  cuckoo-bird, 
Useth  the  sparrow ;  did  oppress  our  nest ; 
Grew  by  our  feeding  to  so  great  a  bulk, 
That  even  our  love  durst  not  come  near  your  sight, 
For  fear  of  swallowing." 

8    Tristius  baud  illis  monstrum,  nee  saevior  ulla 
Postis,  ct  ira  Deum  Stygiis  sesc  extulit  uudis. 
Virginei  volucrum  vultus;  faxlissima  ventris 
Proluvics;  uucajque  manus;  ct  pallida  semper 
Ora  fame 

Here  the  poet  breaks  the  line,  because  he  (and  that  he  is  Virgil)  had  not  verse 
or  language  to  describe  that  monster  even  as  he  had  conceived  her.  Had  he 
lived  in  our  time,  he  would  have  been  more  overpowered  with  the  reality  than 
he  was  with  the  imagination.  Virgil  only  knew  the  horror  of  the  times  before 
him.  Had  he  lived  to  sec  the  revolutionists  and  constitutionalists  of  France,  he 
would  have  had  more  horrid  and  disgusting  features  of  his  harpies  to  describe, 
and  more  frequent  failures  iu  the  attempt  to  describe  them.—  Author's  Note. 


A   LETTER  TO   A   tfOBLE   LORD.  259 

every  thing  they  say,  and  every  thing  they  do,  I  am  amazed  at 
the  morbid  strength  or  the  natural  infirmity  of  his  mind. 

It  was,  then,  not  my  love,  but  my  hatred,  to  innovation,  that 
produced  my  plan  of  reform.  Without  troubling  myself  with 
the  exactness  of  the  logical  diagram,  I  considered  them  as 
things  substantially  opposite.  It  was  to  prevent  that  evil,  that 
I  proposed  the  measures,  which  his  Grace  is  pleased,  and  I  am 
not  sorry  he  is  pleased,  to  recall  to  my  recollection.  I  had  (what 
I  hope  that  noble  Duke  will  remember  in  all  its  operations)  a 
State  to  preserve,  as  well  as  a  State  to  reform.  I  had  a  people 
to  gratify,  but  not  to  inflame,  or  to  mislead.  I  do  not  claim  half 
the  credit  for  what  I  did,  as  for  what  I  prevented  from  being 
done.  In  that  situation  of  the  public  mind,  I  did  not  undertake, 
as  was  then  proposed,  to  new-model  the  House  of  Commons  or 
the  House  of  Lords  ;  or  to  change  the  authority  under  which 
any  officer  of  the  Crown  acted,  who  was  suffered  at  all  to  exist. 
Crown,  Lords,  Commons,  judicial  system,  system  of  administra- 
tion, existed  as  they  had  existed  before  ;  and  in  the  mode  and 
manner  in  which  they  had  always  existed.  My  measures  were, 
what  I  then  truly  stated  them  to  the  House  to  be,  in  their  in- 
tent, healing  and  mediatorial.  A  complaint  was  made  of  too 
much  influence  in  the  House  of  Commons  :  I  reduced  it  in  both 
Houses  ;  and  I  gave  my  reasons  article  by  article  for  every  re- 
duction, and  showed  why  I  thought  it  safe  for  the  service  of  the 
State.  I  heaved  the  lead  every  inch  of  way  I  made.  A  dispo- 
sition to  expense  was  complained  of:  to  that  I  opposed,  not 
mere  retrenchment,  but  a  system  of  economy,  which  would 
make  a  random  expense,  without  plan  or  foresight,  in  future 
not  easily  practicable.  I  proceeded  upon  principles  of  research 
to  put  me  in  possession  of  my  matter  ;  on  principles  of  method 
to  regulate  it ;  and  on  principles  in  the  human  mind  and  in  civil 
affairs  to  secure  and  perpetuate  the  operation.  I  conceived 
nothing  arbitrarily  ;  nor  proposed  any  thing  to  be  done  by  the 
will  and  pleasure  of  others,  or  my  own  ;  but  by  reason,  and  by 
reason  only.  I  have  ever  abhorred,  since  the  first  dawn  of  my 
understanding  to  this  its  obscure  twilight,  all  the  operations  of 
opinion,  fancy,  inclination,  and  will,  in  the  affairs  of  govern- 
ment, where  only  a  sovereign  reason,  paramount  to  all  forms  of 
legislation  and  administration,  should  dictate.  Government  is 
made  for  the  very  purpose  of  opposing  that  reason  to  will  and 
caprice,  in  the  reformers  or  in  the  reformed,  in  the  governors 
or  in  the  governed,  in  kings,  in  senates,  or  in  people. 

On  a  careful  review,  therefore,  and  analysis,  of  all  the  com- 
ponent parts  of  the  civil  list,  and  on  weighing  them  against  each 
other,  in  order  to  make,  as  much  as  possible,  all  of  them  a  sub- 
ject of  estimate*,  (the  foundation  and  corner-stone  of  all  regular 


260  BURKE. 

provident  economy,)  it  appeared  to  me  evident  that  this  was 
impracticable,  whilst  that  part  called  the  pension  list  was  totally 
discretionary  in  its  amount.  For  this  reason,  and  for  this  only, 
I  proposed  to  reduce  it,  both  in  its  gross  quantity  and  in  its 
larger  individual  proportions,  to  a  certainty  ;  lest,  if  it  were 
left  without  a  general  limit,  it  might  eat  up  the  civil-list  service; 
if  suffered  to  be  granted  in  portions  too  great  for  the  fund,  it 
might  defeat  its  own  end;  and,  by  unlimited  allowances  to 
some,  it  might  disable  the  Crown  in  means  of  providing  for 
others.  The  pension  list  was  to  be  kept  as  a  sacred  fund  ;  but 
it  could  not  be  kept  as  a  constant,  open  fund,  sufficient  for 
growing  demands,  if  some  demands  would  wholly  devour  it. 
The  tenour  of  the  Act  will  show  that  it  regarded  the  civil  list 
only,  the  reduction  of  which  to  some  sort  of  estimate  was  my 
great  object. 

No  other  of  the  Crown  funds  did  I  meddle  with,  because  they 
had  not  the  same  relations.  This  of  the  four  and  a  half  per 
cents  does  his  Grace  imagine  had  escaped  me,  or  had  escaped 
all  the  men  of  business  who  acted  with  me  in  those  regulations? 
I  knew  that  such  a  fund  existed,  and  that  pensions  had  been 
always  granted  on  it,  before  his  Grace  was  born.  This  fund 
was  full  in  my  eye.  It  was  full  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  worked 
with  me.  It  was  left  on  principle.  On  principle  I  did  what 
was  then  done ;  and  on  principle  what  was  left  undone  was 
omitted.  I  did  not  dare  to  rob  the  nation  of  all  funds  to  reward 
merit.  If  I  pressed  this  point  too  close,  I  acted  contrary  to  the 
avowed  principles  on  which  I  went.  Gentlemen  are  very  fond 
of  quoting  me  ;  but  if  any  one  thinks  it  worth  his  while  to  know 
the  rules  that  guided  me  in  my  plan  of  reform,  he  will  read  my 
printed  speech  on  that  subject ;  at  least  what  is  contained  from 
page  230  to  page  241  in  the  second  volume  of  the  collection  which 
a  friend  has  given  himself  the  trouble  to  make  of  my  publica- 
tions.9 Be  this  as  it  may,  these  two  bills  (though  achieved  with 
the  greatest  labour,  and  management  of  every  sort,  both  within 
and  without  the  House)  were  only  a  part,  and  but  a  small  part, 
of  a  very  large  system,  comprehending  all  the  objects  I  stated  in 
opening  my  proposition,  and  indeed  many  more,  which  I  just 
hinted  at  in  my  speech  to  the  electors  of  Bristol,  when  I  was  put 
out  of  that  representation.  All  these,  in  some  state  or  other  of 
forwardness,  I  have  long  had  by  me. 

But  do  I  justify  his  Majesty's  grace  on  these  grounds  ?  I  think 
them  the  least  of  my  services  !  The  time  gave  them  an  occa- 
sional value.  \Vhat  I  have  done  in  the  way  of  political  econo- 
my was  far  from  confined  to  this  body  of  measures.  I  did  not 

9    See  Speech  on  Economical  Reform,  pages  S9-9G,  in  this  volume. 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  261 

come  into  Parliament  to  con  my  lesson.  I  had  earned  my  pen- 
sion before  I  set  my  foot  in  St.  Stephen's  chapel.  I  was  pre- 
pared and  disciplined  to  this  political  warfare.  The  first  session 
I  sat  in  Parliament,  I  found  it  necessary  to  analyze  the  whole 
commercial,  financial,  constitutional,  and  foreign  interests  of 
Great  Britain  and  its  empire.  A  great  deal  was  then  done ; 
and  more,  far  more  would  have  been  done,  if  more  had  been 
permitted  by  events.  Then,  in  the  vigour  of  my  manhood,  my 
constitution  sank  under  my  labour.  Had  I  then  died,  (and  I 
seemed  to  myself  very  near  death,)  I  had  then  earned,  for  those 
who  belonged  to  me,  more  than  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  ideas  of 
service  are  of  power  to  estimate.  But,  in  truth,  these  services  I 
am  called  to  account  for  are  not  those  on  which  I  value  myself 
the  most.  If  I  were  to  call  for  a  reward,  (which  I  have  never 
done,)  it  should  be  for  those  in  which  for  fourteen  years,  with- 
out intermission,  I  showed  the  most  industry,  and  had  the  least 
success ;  I  mean  in  the  affairs  of  India.  They  are  those  on 
which  I  value  myself  the  most ;  most  for  the  importance  ;  most 
for  the  labour ;  most  for  the  judgment ;  most  for  constancy  and 
perseverance  in  the  pursuit.  Others  may  value  them  most  for 
the  intention.  In  that,  surely,  they  are  not  mistaken. 

Does  his  Grace  think  that  they  who  advised  the  Crown  to 
make  my  retreat  easy  considered  mo  only  as  an  economist? 
That,  well  understood,  however,  is  a  good  deal.  If  I  had  not 
deemed  it  of  some  value,  I  should  not  have  made  political  econ- 
omy an  object  of  my  humble  studies,  from  my  very  early  youth 
to  near  the  end  of  my  service  in  Parliament,  even  before  (at 
least  to  any  knowledge  of  mine)  it  had  employed  the  thoughts 
of  speculative  men  in  other  parts  of  Europe.  At  that  time  it 
was  still  in  its  infancy  in  England,  where,  in  the  last  century,  it 
had  its  origin.  Great  and  learned  men  thought  my  studies  were 
not  wholly  thrown  away,  and  deigned  to  communicate  with  me 
now  and  then  on  some  particulars  of  their  immortal  works. 
Something  of  these  studies  may  appear  incidentally  in  some  of 
the  earliest  things  I  published.  The  House  has  been  witness  to 
their  ell'ect,  and  has  profited  of  them  more  or  less  for  above 
eight  and  twenty  years. 

To  their  estimate  I  leave  the  matter.  I  was  riot,  like  his 
Grace  of  Bedford,  swaddled,  and  rocked,  and  dandled  into  a 
legislator :  Nitor  in  adversum1  is  the  motto  for  a  man  like  me. 
I  possessed  not  one  of  the  qualities,  nor  cultivated  one  of  the 
arts,  that  recommend  men  to  the  favour  and  protection  of  the 
great.  I  was  not  made  for  a  minion  or  a  tool.  As  little  did  I 
follow  the  trade  of  winning  the  hearts,  by  imposing  on  the  un- 

1    I  pcesa  forward  against  opposition. 


262  BURKE. 

derstandings,  of  the  people.  At  every  step  of  my  progress  in 
life,  (for  in  every  step  was  I  traversed  and  opposed,)  and  at 
every  turnpike  I  met,  I  was  obliged  to  show  my  passport,  and 
again  and  again  to  prove  my  sole  title  to  the  honour  of  being 
useful  to  my  country,  by  a  proof  that  I  was  not  wholly  unac- 
quainted with  its  laws,  and  the  whole  system  of  its  interests 
both  abroad  and  at  home.  Otherwise  no  rank,  no  toleration 
even,  for  me.  I  had  no  arts  but  manly  arts.  On  them  I  have 
stood,  and,  please  God,  in  spite  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford  and  the 
Earl  of  Lauderdale,  to  the  last  gasp  will  I  stand. 

Had  his  Grace  condescended  to  inquire  concerning  the  person 
whom  he  has  not  thought  it  below  him  to  reproach,  he  might 
have  found  that,  in  the  whole  course  of  my  life,  I  have  never, 
on  any  pretence  of  economy,  or  on  any  other  pretence,  so  much 
as  in  a  single  instance,  stood  between  any  man  and  his  reward 
of  service,  or  his  encouragement  in  useful  talent  and  pursuit, 
from  the  highest  of  those  services  and  pursuits  to  the  lowest. 
On  the  contrary,  I  have,  on  an  hundred  occasions,  exerted  my- 
self with  singular  zeal  to  forward  every  man's  even  tolerable 
pretensions.  I  have  more  than  once  had  good-natured  repre- 
hensions from  my  friends  for  carrying  the  matter  to  something 
bordering  on  abuse.  This  line  of  conduct,  whatever  its  merits 
might  be,  was  partly  owing  to  natural  disposition ;  but  1  think 
full  as  much  to  reason  and  principle.  I  looked  on  the  consid- 
eration of  public  service,  or  public  ornament,  to  be  real  and 
very  justice:  and  I  ever  held  a  scanty  and  penurious  justice  to 
partake  of  the  nature  of  a  wrong.  I  held  it  to  be,  in  its  conse- 
quences, the  worst  economy  in  the  world.  In  saving  money,  I 
soon  can  count  up  all  the  good  I  do  ;  but  when,  by  a  cold  pen- 
ury, I  blast  the  abilities  of  a  nation,  and  stunt  the  growth  of  its 
active  energies,  the  ill  I  may  do  is  beyond  all  calculation. 
Whether  it  be  too  much  or  too  little,  whatever  I  have  done  has 
been  general  and  systematic.  I  have  never  entered  into  those 
trifling  vexations  and  oppressive  details  that  have  been  falsely, 
and  most  ridiculously,  laid  to  my  charge. 

Did  I  blame  the  pensions  given  to  Mr.  Barre  and  Mr.  Dun- 
ning between  the  proposition  and  execution  of  my  plan  'J. 
surely  no  !  Those  pensions  were  within  my  principles.  I  as- 
sert it,  those  gentlemen  deserved  their  pensions,  their  titles, — 
all  they  had  ;  and  more  had  they  had,  I  should  have  been  but 
pleased  the  more.  They  were  men  of  talents  ;  they  were  men 
of  service.  I  put  the  profession  of  the  law  out  of  the  question 
in  one  of  them.  It  is  a  service  that  rewards  itself.  But  their 
public  service,  though,  from  their  abilities,  unquestionably  of 
more  value  than  mine,  in  its  quantity  and  its  duration  was  not 
to  be  mentioned  with  it  But  I  uever  could  drive  a  hard  bargain 


A   LETTER  TO   A   tfOBLE   LORD.  263 

in  my  life,  concerning  any  matter  whatever ;  and  least  of  all  do 
I  know  how  to  haggle  and  huckster  with  merit.  Pension  for 
myself  I  obtained  none  ;  nor  did  I  solicit  any.  Yet  I  was  loaded 
with  hatred  for  every  thing  that  was  withheld,  and  with 
obloquy  for  every  thing  that  was  given.  I  was  thus  left  to 
support  the  grants  of  a  name  ever  dear  to  me,2  and  ever  ven- 
erable to  the  world,  in  favour  of  those  who  were  no  friends  of 
mine  or  of  his,  against  the  rude  attacks  of  those  who  were  at 
that  time  friends  to  the  grantees,  and  their  own  zealous  parti- 
sans. I  have  never  heard  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale  complain  of 
these  pensions.  He  finds  nothing  Avrong  till  he  comes  to  me. 
This  is  impartiality  in  the  true,  modern,  revolutionary  style. 

Whatever  I  did  at  that  time,  so  far  as  it  regarded  order  and 
economy,  is  stable  and  eternal ;  as  all  principles  must  be.  A 
particular  order  of  things  may  be  altered ;  order  itself  cannot 
lose  its  value.  As  to  other  particulars,  they  are  variable  by 
time  and  by  circumstances.  Laws  of  regulation  arc  not  funda- 
mental laws.  The  public  exigencies  are  the  masters  of  all  such 
laws.  They  rule  the  laws,  and  are  not  to  be  ruled  by  them. 
They  who  exercise  the  legislative  power  at  the  time  must  judge. 

It  may  be  new  to  his  Grace,  but  I  beg  leave  to  tell  him  that 
mere  parsimony  is  not  economy.  It  is  separable  in  theory  from 
it ;  and  in  fact  it  may,  or  it  may  not,  be  a  part  of  economy, 
according  to  circumstances.  Expense,  and  great  expense,  may 
be  an  essential  part  in  true  economy.  If  parsimony  were  to  be 
considered  as  one  of  the  kinds  of  that  virtue,  there  is  however 
another  and  a  higher  economy.  Economy  is  a  distributive  virtue, 
and  consists  not  in  saving,  but  in  selection.  Parsimony  requires 
no  providence,  no  sagacity,  no  powers  of  combination,  no  com- 
parison, no  judgment.  Mere  instinct,  and  that  not  an  instinct  of 
the  noblest  kind,  may  produce  this  false  economy  in  perfection. 
The  other  economy  has  larger  views.  It  demands  a  discriminat- 
ing judgment,  and  a  firm,  sagacious  mind.  It  shuts  one  door  to 
impudent  importunity,  only  to  open  another,  and  a  wider,  to  un- 
presuming  merit.  If  none  but  meritorious  service  or  real  talent 
were  to  be  rewarded,  this  nation  has  not  wanted,  and  this  na- 
tion will  not  want,  the  means  of  rewarding  all  the  service  it 
ever  will  receive,  and  encouraging  all  the  merit  it  ever  will  pro- 
duce. Xo  State,  since  the  foundation  of  society,  has  been  im- 
poverished by  that  species  of  profusion.  Had  the  economy  of 
selection  and  proportion  been  at  all  times  observed,  we  should 
not  now  have  had  an  overgrown  Duke  of  Bedford,  to  oppress 
the  industry  of  humble  men,  and  to  limit,  by  the  standard  of 

2  The  allusion  is  to  the  Marquess  of  Rockiiigham,  who,  like  other  Prime 
Ministers,  granted  some  pensions. 


264  BUKKE. 

his  own  conceptions,  the  justice,  the  bounty,  or,  if  he  pleases, 
the  charity  of  the  Crown. 

His  Grace  may  think  as  meanly  as  he  will  of  my  deserts 
in  the  far  greater  part  of  my  conduct  in  life.  It  is  free  for  him 
to  do  so.  There  will  always  be  some  difference  of  opinion  in 
the  value  of  political  services.  But  there  is  one  merit  of  mine 
which  he,  of  all  men  living,  ought  to  be  the  last  to  call  in 
question.  I  have  supported  with  very  great  zeal,  and  I  am 
told  with  some  degree  of  success,  those  opinions,  or  if  his  Grace 
likes  another  expression  better,  those  old  prejudices,  which 
buoy  up  the  ponderous  mass  of  his  nobility,  wealth,  and  titles. 
I  have  omitted  no  exertion  to  prevent  him  and  them  from 
sinking  to  that  level  to  which  the  meretricious  French  faction, 
his  Grace  at  least  coquets  with,  omit  no  exertion  to  reduce 
both.  I  have  done  all  I  could  to  discountenance  their  inquiries 
into  the  fortunes  of  those  who  hold  large  portions  of  wealth 
without  any  apparent  merit  of  their  own.  I  have  strained 
every  nerve  to  keep  the  Duke  of  Bedford  in  that  situation 
which  alone  makes  him  my  superior.  Your  Lordship  has  been 
a  witness  of  the  use  he  makes  of  that  preeminence. 

But  be  it,  that  this  is  virtue  !  Be  it,  that  there  is  virtue  in 
this  well-selected  rigour;  yet  all  virtues  are  not  equally  be- 
coming to  all  men  and  at  all  times.  There  are  crimes,  un- 
doubtedly there  are  crimes,  which  in  all  seasons  of  our  exist- 
ence ought  to  put  a  generous  antipathy  in  action  ;  crimes  that 
provoke  an  indignant  justice,  and  call  forth  a  warm  and  ani- 
mated pursuit.  But  all  things  that  concern  what  I  may  call  the 
preventive  police  of  morality,  all  things  merely  rigid,  harsh, 
and  censorial,  the  antiquated  moralists,  at  whose  feet  I  was 
brought  up,  would  not  have  thought  these  the  fittest  matter 
to  form  the  favourite  virtues  of  young  men  of  rank.  What 
might  have  been  well  enough,  and  have  been  received  with 
a  veneration  mixed  with  awe  and  terror,  from  an  old,  severe, 
crabbed  Cato,  would  have  wanted  something  of  propriety  in  the 
young  Scipios,  the  ornament  of  the  Roman  nobility,  in  the 
flower  of  their  life.  But  the  times,  the  morals,  the  masters,  the 
scholars,  have  all  undergone  a  thorough  revolution.  It  is  a 
vile,  illiberal  school,  this  new  French  academy  of  the  nuns  cu- 
lottes. There  is  nothing  in  it  that  is  fit  for  a  gentleman  to 
learn. 

Whatever  its  vogue  may  be,  I  still  natter  myself,  that  the 
parents  of  the  growing  generation  will  be  satisfied  with  what 
is  to  be  taught  to  their  children  in  Westminster,  in  Eton,  or  in 
Winchester  :  I  still  indulge  the  hope  that  no  grown  gentleman 
or  nobleman  of  our  time  will  think  of  finishing  at  Mr.  Thel- 


A   LETTER  TO  A   NOBLE   LORD.  265 

wall's  lecture3  whatever  may  have  been  left  incomplete  at  the 
old  universities  of  his  country.  I  would  give  to  Lord  Grenville 
and  }.Ir.  Pitt  for  a  motto,  what  was  said  of  a  Roman  censor  or 
prostor,  (or  what  was  he?)  who,  in  virtue  of  a  Senatus  con- 
sultum,  shut  up  certain  academies  :  Chtdcre  ludum  i)nj)udentlce 
jussit.*  Every  honest  father  of  a  family  in  the  kingdom  will 
rejoice  at  the  breaking  up  for  the  holidays,  and  will  pray  that 
there  may  be  a  very  long  vacation  in  all  such  schools. 

The  awful  state  of  the  time,  and  not  myself,  or  my  own  justi- 
fication, is  my  true  object  in  what  I  now  write  ;  or  in  what  I 
shall  ever  write  or  say.  It  little  signifies  to  the  world  what 
becomes  of  such  things  as  me,  or  even  as  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 
What  I  say  about  either  of  us  is  nothing  more  than  a  vehicle, 
as  you,  my  Lord,  will  easily  perceive,  to  convey  my  sentiments 
on  matter  far  moro  worthy  of  your  attention.  It  is  when  I 
stick  to  my  apparent  first  subject  that  I  ought  to  apologize,  not 
when  I  depart  from  it,  I  therefore  must  beg  your  Lordship's 
pardon  for  again  resuming  it  after  this  very  short  digression ; 
assuring  you  that  I  shall  never  altogether  lose  sight  of  such 
matter  as  persons  abler  than  I  am  may  turn  to  some  profit. 

The  Duke  of  Bedford  conceives  that  he  is  obliged  to  call  the 
attention  of  the  House  of  Peers  to  his  Majesty's  grant  to  me, 
which  he  considers  as  excessive,  and  out  of  all  bounds. 

I  know  not  how  it  has  happened,  but  it  really  seems,  that, 
whilst  his  Grace  was  meditating  his  well-considered  censure 
upon  me,  he  fell  into  a  sort  of  sleep.  Homer  nods  ;  and  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  may  dream ;  and  as  dreams  (even  his  golden 
dreams)  are  apt  to  be  ill-pieced  and  incongruously  put  together, 
his  Grc*"e  preserved  his  idea  of  reproach  to  me,  but  took  the 
subject-matter  from  the  Crown  grants  to  his  own  family.  This  is 
"tho  stuff  of  which  his  dreams  are  made."  In  that  way  of 
putting  things  together  his  Grace  is  perfectly  in  the  right.  The 
9  to  the  house  of  Russell  were  so  enormous,  as  not  only  to 
<  -titrate  cronomy,  but  even  to  stagger  credibility.  The  Duke  of 
:  d  is  the  leviathan  among  all  the  creatures  of  the  Crown, 
lie  tumbles  about  his  unwieldy  bulk ;  he  plays  and  frolics  in 
the  ocean  of  the  royal  bounty.  Huge  as  he  is,  and  whilst  "he 

.'»  John  Thelwall  was  at  that  time  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  advocates  of 
ml  !ii3  "flaming  orations  "brought  him  in  peril  from  the  gov- 
ernment. Talfourd,  in  his  account  of  Charles  Lamb's  "  dead  companions,"  gives 
a  chan.iing  sketch  of  him,  from  which  I  quote  the  following:  "  Starting  with  im- 
edtr'.atkm  from  the;  thraldom  of  domestic  oppression,  with  slender 
knowledge',  but  with  fiery  zeal,  into  the  dangers  of  political  enterprise,  and 
treading  fearlessly  on  the  verge  of  sedition,  he  saw  nothing  before  him  but 
powers  which  he  assumed  to  be  despotism  and  vice,  and  rushed  headlong  to 
crush  them." 

4    He  ordered  the  school  of  impudence  to  be  closed. 


266  BURKE. 

lies  floating  many  a  rood,"  he  is  still  a  creature.  His  ribs,  his 
fins,  his  whalebone,  his  blubber,  the  very  spiracles  through 
which  he  spouts  a  torrent  of  brine  against  his  origin,  and  cov- 
ers me  all  over  with  the  spray,—  every  thing  of  him  and  about 
him  is  from  the  throne.  Is  it  for  him  to  question  the  dispensa- 
tion of  the  royal  favour  ? 

I  really  am  at  a  loss  to  draw  any  sort  of  parallel  between  the 
public  merits  of  his  Grace,  by  which  he  justifies  the  grants  he 
holds,  and  these  services  of  mine,  on  the  favourable  construction 
of  which  I  have  obtained  what  his  Grace  so  much  disapproves. 
In  private  life  I  have  not  at  all  the  honour  of  acquaintance  with 
the  noble  Duke.  But  I  ought  to  presume,  and  it  costs  me  noth- 
ing to  do  so,  that  he  abundantly  deserves  the  esteem  and  love 
of  all  who  live  with  him.  But  as  to  public  service,  why,  truly  it 
would  not  be  more  ridiculous  for  me  to  compare  myself  in  rank, 
in  fortune,  in  splendid  descent,  in  youth,  strength,  or  figure, 
with  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  than  to  make  a  parallel  between  his 
services  and  my  attempts  to  be  useful  to  my  country.  It  would 
not  be  gross  adulation,  but  uncivil  irony,  to  say  that  he  has  any 
public  merit  of  his  own  to  keep  alive  the  idea  of  the  services 
by  which  his  vast  landed  pensions  were  obtained.  My  merits, 
whatever  they  are,  are  original  and  personal ;  his  arc  derivative. 
It  is  his  ancestor,  the  original  pensioner,  that  has  laid  up  this 
inexhaustible  fund  of  merit,  which  makes  his  Grace  so  very  del- 
icate and  exceptions  about  the  merit  of  all  other  grantees  of  the 
Crown.  Had  he  permitted  me  to  remain  in  quiet,  I  should 
have  said,  'tis  his  estate  ;  that's  enough.  It  is  his  by  law ; 
what  have  I  to  do  with  it  or  its  history  ?  He  would  naturally 
have  said,  on  his  side,  'tis  this  man's  fortune.  He  is  as  good 
now  as  my  ancestor  was  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  I  am 
a  young  man  with  very  old  pensions  ;  he  is  an  old  man  with 
very  young  pensions, — that's  all. 

Why  will  his  Grace,  by  attacking  me,  force  me  reluctantly  to 
compare  my  little  merit  with  that  which  obtained  from  the 
Crown  those  prodigies  of  profuse  donation  by  which  he  tram- 
ples on  the  mediocrity  of  humble  and  laborious  individuals '?  I 
would  willingly  leave  him  to  the  herald's  college,  which  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  sans-culottcs  (prouder  by  far  than  all  the  Garters, 
and  Xorroys,  and  Clarencieux,  and  llouge  Dragons,5  that  ever 
pranced  in  a  procession  of  what  his  friends  call  aristocrats  and 
despots)  will  abolish  with  contumely  and  scorn.  These  histori- 

5  Roiifje.  Dragon  is  the  name,  or  title,  of  an  officer  in  the  College  of  Heralds. 
Garter  was  the  title  of  the  lirst  or  principal  king-at-anns  in  England;  so  called 
because  he  was  a  herald  belonging  to  the  Order  of  the  Garter.  Clarencieux  was 
the  title  of  the  second  king-at-arms,  and  Xorroy  that  of  the  third.  The  latter 
two  had  ouly  provincial  jurisdictions  iu  Euglaud. 


A  LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  267 

ans,  recorders,  and  blazoners  of  virtues  and  arms,  differ  wholly 
from  that  other  description  of  historians  who  never  assign  any 
act  of  politicians  to  a  good  motive.  These  gentle  historians,  on 
the  contrary,  dip  their  pens  in  nothing  but  the  milk  of  human 
kindness.  They  seek  no  further  for  merit  than  the  preamble  of 
a  patent  or  the  inscription  on  a  tomb.  With  them  every  man 
created  a  peer  is  first  a  hero  ready  made.  They  judge  of  every 
man's  capacity  for  office  by  the  offices  he  has  filled ;  and  the 
more  offices  the  more  ability.  Every  general  officer  with  them 
is  a  Maryborough  ;  every  statesman  a  Burleigh  ;  every  judge  a 
Murray  or  a  Yorke.0  They  who,  alive,  were  laughed  at  or  pitied 
by  all  their  acquaintance,  make  as  good  a  figure  as  the  best  of 
them  in  the  pages  of  Guillim,  Edmondson,  and  Collins.7 

To  these  recorders,  so  full  of  good  nature  to  the  great  and 
prosperous,  I  would  willingly  leave  the  first  Baron  Ilussell,  and 
Earl  of  Bedford,  and  the  merits  of  his  grants.  But  the  aulna- 
gcr,  the  weigher,  the  meter  of  grants,  will  not  suffer  us  to 
acquiesce  in  the  judgment  of  the  prince  reigning  at  the  time 
when  they  \vcn-  made.  They  are  never  good  to  those  who  earn 
them.  Well  then,  since  the  new  grantees  have  war  made  on 
them  by  the  old,  and  that8  the  word  of  the  sovereign  is  not  to 
be  taken,  let  us  turn  our  eyes  to  history,  in  which  great  men 
have  always  a  pleasure  in  contemplating  the  heroic  origin  of 
their  house. 

The  first  peer  of  the  name,  the  first  purchaser  of  the  grants, 
was  a  Mr.  Russell,  a  person  of  an  ancient  gentleman's  family, 
raised  by  being  a  minion  of  Henry  the  Eighth.  As  thero 
generally  is  some  resemblance  of  character  to  create  these 
relations,  the  favourite  was  in  nil  likelihood  much  such  another 
as  his  master.  The  first  of  those  immoderate  grants  was  not 
taken  from  the  ancient  demesne  of  the  Crown,  but  from  the 
recent  confiscation  of  the  ancient  nobility  of  the  land.  The 
lion,  having  sucked  the  blood  of  his  prey,  threw  the  offal  carcass 
to  the  jackal  in  waiting.  Having  tasted  once  the  food  of  confis- 
cation, the  favourites  became  fierce  and  ravenous.  This  worthy 
favourite's  first  grant  was  from  the  lay  nobility.  The  second, 
infinitely  improving  on  the  enormity  of  the  first,  was  from  the 

• 

0    Murray  and  Yorke  are  the  family  names  of  two  men  who  were  then  highly 
•  ii.shed  in  the  law,  and  were  raised  to  the  peerage,  on  account  of  their 
legal  eminence,  as  the  Earl  of  Mansfield  and  the  Earl  of  Ilardwick. 

7  These  are  the  names  of  authors  once  distinguished  in  the  lore  of  chivalry 
or  heraldry. 

8  Here,  in  since  and  that,  we  have  a  relic  of  the  old  lingual  usage,  for  that, 
if  that,  since  that,  though  that,  when  that,  Ac.    In  a  good  many  instances,  Burke, 
instead  of  repeating  the  first  of  these  words  in  a  second  clause  or  member,  sub. 
stitutes  the  other.    Here,  instead  of  that,  present  usage  would  repeat  since. 


2G8  BURKE. 

plunder  of  the  Church.9  In  truth  his  Grace  is  somewhat 
excusable  for  his  dislike  to  a  grant  like  mine,  not  only  in  its 
quantity,  but  in  its  kind  so  different  from  his  own. 

Mine  was  from  a  mild  and  benevolent  sovereign  ;  his  from 
Henry  the  Eighth. 

Mine  had  not  its  fund  in  the  murder  of  any  innocent  person 
of  illustrious  rank,1  or  in  the  pillage  of  any  body  of  unoffending 
men.  His  grants  were  from  the  aggregate  and  consolidated 
funds  of  judgments  iniquitously  legal,  and  from  possessions 
voluntarily  surrendered  by  the  lawful  proprietors,  with  the 
gibbet  at  their  door. 

The  merit  of  the  grantee  whom  he  derives  from  was  that  of 
being  a  prompt  and  greedy  instrument  of  a  kvellimj  tyrant,  who 
oppressed  all  descriptions  of  his  people,  but  who  fell  with 
particular  fury  on  every  thing  that  was  great  and  noble.  Mine 
has  been  in  endeavouring  to  screen  every  man,  in  every  class, 
from  oppression,  and  particularly  in  defending  the  high  and 
eminent,  who,  in  the  bad  times  of  confiscating  princes,  confis- 
cating chief  governors,  or  confiscating  demagogues,  are  the 
most  exposed  to  jealousy,  avarice,  and  envy. 

The  merit  of  the  original  grantee  of  his  Grace's  pensions  was 
in  giving  his  hand  to  the  work  and  partaking  the  spoil  with  a 
prince  who  plundered  a  part  of  the  national  Church  of  his 
time  and  country.  Mine  was  in  defending  the  whole  of  the 
national  Church  of  my  own  time  and  my  own  country,  and  the 
whole  of  the  national  Churches  of  all  countries,  from  the  prin- 
ciples and  the  examples  which  lead  to  ecclesiastical  pillage, 
thence  to  a  contempt  of  all  prescriptive  titles,  thence  to  the 
pillage  of  all  property,  and  thence  to  universal  desolation. 

The  merit  of  the  origin  of  his  Grace's  fortune  was  in  being  a 
favourite  and  chief  adviser  to  a  prince  who  left  no  liberty  to 
their  native  country.  My  endeavour  was  to  obtain  liberty  for 
the  municipal  country  in  which  I  was  born,  and  for  all  descrip- 
tions and  denominations  in  it.  Mine  was  to  support  with 
unrelaxing  vigilance  every  right,  every  privilege,  every  fran- 
chise, in  this  my  adopted,  my  dearer,  and  more  comprehensive 
country  ;  and  not  only  to  preserve  those  rights  in  this  chief 
seat  of  empire,  but  in  every  nation,  in  every  land,  in  eve«ry 
climate,  language,  and  religion,  in  the  vast  domain  that  i 
under  the  protection,  and  the  larger  that  was  once  under  the 
protection,  of  the  British  Crown. 

His  founder's  merits  were,  by  arts  in  which  he  served  his 

9  The  dissolution  and  suppression  of  the  monasteries  supplied  Henry  the 
Eighth  with  abundance  of  land  wherewith  to  reward  his  minions. 

1  Referring  especially  to  the  execution  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham ;  who, 
however,  could  hardly  be  called  innocent. 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  2G9 

master  and  made  his  fortune,  to  bring  poverty,  wretchedness, 
and  depopulation  on  his  country.  Mine  were,  under  a  benevo- 
lent prince,  in  promoting  the  commerce,  manufactures,  and 
agriculture  of  his  kingdom ;  in  which  his  Majesty  shows  an 
eminent  example,  who  even  in  his  amusements  is  a  patriot,  and 
in  hours  of  leisure  an  improver  of  his  nat'ive  soil. 

His  founder's  merit  was  the  merit  of  a  gentleman  raised  by 
the  arts  of  a  Court,  and  the  protection  of  a  Wolsey,  to  the  emi- 
nence of  a  great  and  potent  lord.  His  merit  in  that  eminence 
was,  by  instigating  a  tyrant  to  injustice,  to  provoke  a  people 
to  rebellion.  My  merit  was  to  awaken  the  sober  part  of 
the  country,  that  they  might  put  themselves  on  their  guard 
against  any  one  potent  lord,  or  any  greater  number  of  potent 
lords,  or  any  combination  of  great  leading  men  of  any  sort,  if 
ever  they  should  attempt  to  proceed  in  the  same  courses,  but 
in  the  reverse  order ;  that  is,  by  instigating  a  corrupted  popu- 
lace to  rebellion,  and,  through  that  rebellion,  introducing  a 
tyranny  yet  worse  than  the  tyranny  which  his  Grace's  ancestor 
supported,  and  of  which  he  profited  in  the  manner  we  behold 
in  the  despotism  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

The  political  merit  of  the  first  pensioner  of  his  Grace's  House 
was  that  of  being  concerned  as  u  counsellor  of  State  in  advising, 
and  in  his  person  executing,  the  conditions  of  a  dishonourable 
peace  with  France, —  the  surrendering  the  fortress  of  Boulogne, 
then  our  out-guard  on  the  Continent.  By  that  surrender,  Cal- 
ais, the  key  of  France,  and  the  bridle  in  the  mouth  of  that 
power,  was,  not  many  years  afterwards,  finally  lost.  My*  merit 
has  been  in  resisting  the  power  and  pride  of  France,  under  any 
form  of  its  rule  ;  but  in  opposing  it  with  the  greatest  zeal  and 
earnestness,  when  that  rule  appeared  in  the  worst  form  it  could 
assume, —  the  worst  indeed  which  the  prime  cause  and  principle 
of  all  evil  could  possibly  give  it.  It  was  my  endeavour  by  every 
means  to  excite  a  spirit  in  the  House  where  I  had  the  honour  of 
u  seat,  for  carrying  on,  with  early  vigour  and  decision,  the  most 
clearly  just  and  necessary  war  that  this  or  any  nation  ever  car- 
ried on,  in  order  to  save  my  country  from  the  iron  yoke  of  its 
i  »>  \\ei-,  and  from  the  more  dreadful  contagion  of  its  principles  ; 
to  preserve,  while  they  can  be  preserved,  pure  and  untainted, 
the.  ancient,  inbred  integrity,  piety,  good-nature,  and  good- 
huniour  of  the  people  of  England,  from  the  dreadful  pestilence 
which,  beginning  in  France,  threatens  to  lay  waste  the  whole 
moral,  and  in  a  great  degree  the  whole  physical  world,  having 
done;  both  in  the  focus  of  its  most  intense  malignity. 

The  labours  of  his  Grace's  founder  merited  the  curses,  not 
loud  but  deep,  of  the  Commons  of  England,  on  whom  lie  and 
his  master  had  effected  a  complete  Parliamentary  JRc/orm,  by 


270  BUKKE. 

making  them,  in  their  slavery  and  humiliation,  the  true  and 
adequate  representatives  of  a  debased,  degraded,  and  undone 
people.  My  merits  were  in  having  had  an  active,  though  not 
always  an  ostentatious,  share  in  every  one  Act,  without  excep- 
tion, of  undisputed  constitutional  utility  in  my  time,  and  in 
having  supported,  on  all  occasions,  the  authority,  the  efficiency, 
and  the  privileges  of  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain.  I  ended 
my  services  by  a  recorded  and  fully  reasoned  assertion  on  their 
own  journals  of  their  constitutional  rights,  and  a  vindication  of 
their  constitutional  conduct.  I  laboured  in  all  things  to  merit 
their  inward  approbation,  and  (along  with  the  assistance  of  the 
largest,  the  greatest,  and  best  of  my  endeavours)  I  received 
their  free,  unbiassed,  public,  and  solemn  thanks. 

Thus  stands  the  account  of  the  comparative  merits  of  the 
Crown  grants  which  compose  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  fortune  as 
balanced  against  mine.  In  the  name  of  common  sense,  why 
should  the  Duke  of  Bedford  think  that  none  but  of  the  House 
of  Russell  arc  entitled  to  the  favour  of  the  Crown  ?  AVhy 
should  he  imagine  that  no  king  of  England  has  been  capable  of 
judging  of  merit  but  King  Henry  the  Eighth?  Indeed,  he  will 
pardon  me ;  he  is  a  little  mistaken  :  all  virtue  did  not  end  in, 
the  first  Earl  of  Bedford.  All  discernment  did  not  lose  its  vis- 
ion when  his  creator  closed  his  eyes.  Let  him  remit  his  rigour 
on  the  disproportion  between  merit  and  reward  in  others,  ami 
they  will  make  no  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  his  fortune.  They 
will  regard  with  much  more  satisfaction,  as  he  will  contemplate 
with  Infinitely  more 'advantage,  whatever  in  his  pedigree  has 
been  dulcified  by  an  exposure  to  the  influence  of  heaven  in  a 
long  How  of  generations,  from  the  hard,  acidulous,  metallic 
tincture  of  the  spring.  It  is  little  to  be  doubted,  that  several  of 
his  forefathers  in  that  long  series  have  degenerated  into  hon- 
our and  virtue.  Let  the  Duke  of  Bedford  (I  am  sure  he  will) 
reject  with  scorn  and  horror  the  counsels  of  the  lecturers,  those 
wicked  panders  to  avarice  and  ambition,  who  would  tempt  him, 
in  the  troubles  of  his  country,  to  seek  another  enormous  fortune 
from  the  forfeitures  of  another  nobilitj',  and  the  plunder  of  an- 
other Church.  Let  him  (and  I  trust  that  yet  he  will)  employ  all 
the  energy  of  his  youth,  and  all  the  resources  of  his  wealth,  to 
crush  rebellious  principles  which  have  no  foundation  in  morals, 
and  rebellious  movements  that  have  no  provocation  in  tyranny. 

Then  will  be  forgot  the  rebellions  which,  by  a  doubtful  pri- 
ority in  crime,  his  ancestor  had  provoked  and  extinguished.  On 
such  a  conduct  in  the  noble  Duke,  many  of  his  countrymen 
might,  and  with  some  excuse  might,  give  way  to  the  enthu 
of  their  gratitude,  and,  in  the  dashing  style  of  some  of  the  old 
declaimers,  cry  out,  that  if  the  fates  had  found  no  other  way  iu 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  271 

which  they  could  give  a  Duke  of  Bedford  and  his  opulence  as 
props  to  a  tottering  world,  then  the  butchery  of  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  might  be  tolerated:  it  might  be  regarded  even 
with  complacency,  whilst  in  the  heir  of  confiscation  they  saw 
the  sympathizing  comforter  of  the  martyrs  who  suffer  under 
the  cruel  confiscation  of  this  day  ;  whilst  they  behold  with  ad- 
miration his  zealous  protection  of  the  virtuous  and  loyal  nobility 
of  France,  and  his  manly  support  of  his  brethren,  the  yet  stand- 
ing nobility  and  gentry  of  his  native  land.  Then  his  Grace's 
merit  would  be  pure  and  new  and  sharp,  as  fresh  from  the 
mint  of  honour.  As  he  pleased  he  might  reflect  honour  on  his 
predecessors,  or  throw  it  forward  on  those  who  were  to  succeed 
him.  He  might  be  the*  propagator  of  the  stock  of  honour,  or 
the  root  of  it,  as  he  thought  proper. 

Had  it  pleased  God  to  continue  to  me  the  hopes  of  succession, 
I  should  have  been,  according  to  my  mediocrity,  and  the  medi- 
ocrity of  the  age  I  live  in,  a  sort  of  founder  of  a  family:  I  should 
have  left  a  son  who,  in  all  the  points  in  which  personal  merit 
can  be  viewed,  in  science,  in  erudition,  in  genius,  in  taste,  in 
honour,  in  generosity,  in  humanity,  in  every  liberal  sentiment 
and  every  liberal  accomplishment,  would  not  have  shown  him- 
self inferior  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  or  to  any  of  those  whom 
he  traces  in  his  line.  His  Grace  very  soon  would  have  wanted 
all  plausibility  in  his  attack  upon  that  provision  which  belonged 
more  to  mine  than  to  me.  HE  would  soon  have  supplied  every 
deficiency,  and  symmetrized  every  disproportion.  It  would  not 
have  been  for  that  successor  to  resort  to  any  stagnant  wasting 
reservoir  of  merit  in  me,  or  in  any  ancestry.  He  had  in  himself 
a  salient,  living  spring  of  generous  and  manly  action.  Every 
day  he  lived  he  would  have  re-purchased  the  bounty  of  the 
Crown,  and  ten  times  more,  if  ten  times  more  he  had  received. 
He  was  made  a  public  creature,  and  had  no  enjoyment  what- 
ever but  in  the  performance  of  some  duty.  At  this  exigent 
moment  the  loss  of  a  finished  man  is  not  easily  supplied. 

But  a  Disposer  whose  power  we  are  little  able  to  resist,  and 
whose  wisdom  it  behoves  us  not  at  all  to  dispute,  has  ordained 
it  in  another  manner,  and  (whatever  my  querulous  weakness 
might  suggest;  a  far  better.  The  storm  has  gone  over  me  ;  and 
I  lie  like  one  of  those  old  oaks  which  the  late  hurricane  has 
scattered  about  me.  I  am  stripped  of  all  my  honours,  I  am  torn 
up  by  the  roots,  and  lie  prostrate  on  the  earth!  There,  and 
prostrate  there,  I  most  unfeignedly  recognize  the  Divine  justice, 
and  in  some  degree  submit  to  it.  But  whilfst  I  humble  myself 
before  God,  I  do  not  know  that  it  is  forbidden  to  repel  the  at- 
tacks of  unjust  and  inconsiderate  men.  The  patience  of  Job  is 
proverbial.  After  some  of  the  convulsive  struggles  of  our  irri- 


272  BURKE. 

table  nature,  he  submitted  himself,  and  repented  in  dust  and 
ashes.  But  even  so,  I  do  not  find  him  blamed  for  reprehending, 
and  with  a  considerable  degree  of  verbal  asperity,  those  ill- 
natured  neighbours  of  his  who  visited  his  dunghill  to  read 
moral,  political,  and  economical  lectures  on  his  misery.  I  am 
alone.  I  have  none  to  meet  my  enemies  in  the  gate.  Indeed, 
my  Lord,  I  greatly  deceive  myself,  if  in  this  hard  season  I 
would  give  a  peck  of  refuse  wheat  for  all  that  is  called  fame 
and  honour  in  the  world.  This  is  the  appetite  but  of  a  few.  It 
is  a  luxury,  it  is  a  privilege,  it  is  an  indulgence  for  those  who 
are  at  their  ease.  But  we  are  all  of  us  made  to  shun  disgrace, 
as  we  are  made  to  shrink  from  pain  and  poverty  and  disease. 
It  is  an  instinct ;  and,  under  the  direction  of  reason,  instinct  is 
always  in  the  right.  I  live  in  an  inverted  order.  They  who 
ought  to  have  succeeded  me  are  gone  before  me.  They  who 
should  have  been  to  me  as  posterity  are  in  the  place  of  ances- 
tors. I  owe  to  the  dearest  relation  (which  ever  must  subsist  in 
memory)  that  act  of  piety  which  lie  would  have  performed  to 
me, —  I  owe  it  to  him  to  show  that  he  was  not  descended,  as  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  would  have  it,  from  an  unworthy  parent. 

The  Crown  has  considered  me  alter  long  service:  the  Crown 
has  paid  the  Duke  of  Bedford  by  advance.  He  has  had  a  long 
credit  for  any  service  which  he  may  perform  hereafter.  He  is 
secure,  and  long  may  he  be  secure,  in  his  advance,  whether  he 
performs  any  services  or  not.  But  let  him  take  care  how  he 
endangers  the  safety  of  that  Constitution  which  secures  his  own 
utility  or  his  own  insignificance  ;  or  how  he  discourages  those 
who  take  up,  even  puny  arms,  to  defend  an  order  of  things 
which,  like  the  Sun  of  heaven,  shines  alike  on  the  useful  and 
the  worthless.  His  grants  are  ingrafted  on  the  public  law  of 
Europe,  covered  with  the  awful  hoar  of  innumerable  ages. 
They  are  guarded  by  the  sacred  rules  of  prescription,  found  in 
that  full  treasury  of  jurisprudence  from  which  the  jejuneness 
and  penury  of  our  municipal  law  has,  by  degrees,  been  enriched 
and  strengthened.  This  prescription  I  had  my  share  (a  very 
full  share)  in  bringing  to  its  perfection.  The  Duke  of  Bedford 
will  stand  as  long  as  prescriptive  law  endures  ;  as  long  as  the 
great  stable  laws  of  property,  common  to  us  with  all  civilized 
nations,  are  kept  in  their  integrity,  and  without  the  smallest  in- 
termixture of  laws,  maxims,  principles,  or  precedents  of  the 
Grand  Revolution.  They  are  secure  against  all  changes  but 
one.  The  whole  Revolutionary  system,  institutes,  digest,  code, 
novels,  text,  gloss,  comment,  are  not  only  not  the  same,  but 
they  are  the  very  reverse,  and  the  reverse  fundamentally,  of  all 
the  laws  on  which  civil  life  has  hitherto  been  upheld  in  all  the 
governments  of  the  world.  The  learned  professors  of  the  Rights 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  273 

of  Man  regard  prescription  not  as  a  title  to  bar  all  claim  set  up 
against  all  possession  ;  but  they  look  on  prescription  as  itself  a 
bar  against  the  possessor  and  proprietor.  They  hold  an  imme- 
morial possession  to  be  no  more  than  a  long-continued,  and 
therefore  an  aggravated  injustice. 

Such  are  their  ideas,  such  their  religion,  and  such  their 
law.  But  as  to  our  country  and  our  race,  as  long  as  the  well- 
compacted  structure  of  our  Church  and  State,  the  sanctuary, 
the  holy  of  holies  of  that  ancient  law,  defended  by  reverence, 
defended  by  power,  a  fortress  at  once  and  a  temple,  shall  stand 
inviolate  on  the  brow  of  the  British  Sion;  as  long  as  the  British 
monarchy,  not  more  limited  than  fenced  by  the  orders  of  the 
State,  shall,  like  the  proud  Keep  of  Windsor,  rising  in  the 
majesty  of  proportion,  and  girt  with  the  double  belt  of  its  kin- 
dred and  coeval  towers  ;  —  as  long  as  this  awful  structure  shall 
oversee  and  guard  the  subjected  land,  so  long  the  mounds  and 
dykes  of  the  low,  fat,  Bedford  level  will  have  nothing  to  fear 
from  all  the  pickaxes  of  all  the  levellers  of  France.  As  long  as 
our  sovereign  lord  the  King,  and  his  faithful  subjects,  the 
Lords  and  Commons  of  this  realm, — the  triple  cord,  which  no 
man  can  break;  the  solemn,  sworn,  constitutional  frank-pledge 
of  this  nation  ;  the  firm  guarantees  of  each  other's  being,  and 
each  other's  rights  ;  the  joint  and  several  securities,  each  in  its 
place  and  order,  for  every  kind  and  every  quality  of  property 
and  of  dignity;  —  as  long  as  these  endure,  so  long  the  Duke  of 
Bedford  is  safe  :  and  we  are  all  safe  together, —  the  high  from 
the  blights  of  envy  and  the  spoliations  of  rapacity;  the  low  from 
the  iron  hand  of  oppression  and  insolent  spurn  of  contempt. 
Amen  I  and  so  be  it :  and  so  it  will  be, 

Dum  domus  JEncx  Capitoli  immobile  saxura 
Accolet;  impcriumquc  pater  llomanus  habebit.2' 

But  if  the  rude  inroad  of  Gallic  tumult,  with  its  sophistical 
rights  of  man  to  falsify  the  account,  and  its  sword  as  a  make- 
weight to  throw  into  the  scale,  shall  be  introduced  into  our  city 
by  a  misguided  populace,  set  on  by  proud  great  men,  them- 
selves blinded  and  intoxicated  by  a  frantic  ambition,  we  shall 
all  of  us  perish  and  be  overwhelmed  in  a  common  ruin.  If  a 
great  storm  blow  on  our  coast,  it  will  cast  the  whales  on  the 
strand  as  well  as  the  periwinkles.  His  Grace  will  not  survive 
the  poor  grantee  he  despises,  no,  not  for  a  twelvemonth.  If  the 
look  for  safety  in  the  services  they  render  to  this  Gallic 
cause,  it  is  to  be  foolish  even  above  the  weight  of  privilege 

2  So  long  as  the  House  of  ^Eneas  dwells  near  the  immovable  rock  of  the  Cap- 
itol,  and  the  Roman  wields  the  sword  of  empire. 


BURKE. 

allowed  to  wealth.  If  his  Grace  be  one  of  these  whom  they  en- 
deavour to  proselytize,  he  ought  to  be  aware  of  the  character  of 
the  sect  whose  doctrines  he  is  invited  to  embrace.  With  them 
insurrection  is  the  most  sacred  of  revolutionary  duties  to  the 
State.  Ingratitude  to  benefactors  is  the  first  of  revolutionary 
virtues.  Ingratitude  is  indeed  their  four  cardinal  virtues  com- 
pacted and  amalgamated  into  one  ;  and  he  will  find  in  it  every 
thing  that  has  happened  since  the  commencement  of  the  philo- 
sophic Revolution  to  this  hour.  If  he  pleads  the  merit  of  hav- 
ing performed  the  duty  of  insurrection  against  the  order  he 
lives  in,  (God  forbid  he  ever  should!)  the  merit  of  others  will  be 
to  perform  the  duty  of  insurrection  against  him.  If  he  pleads 
(again  God  forbid  he  should  !  and  I  do  not  suspect  he  will)  his 
ingratitude  to  the  Crown  for  its  creation  of  his  family,  others 
will  plead  their  right  and  duty  to  pay  him  in  kind.  They  will 
laugh,  indeed  they  will  laugh,  at  his  parchment  and  his  wax. 
His  deeds  will  be  drawn  out  with  the  rest  of  the  lumber  of  his 
evidonce-room,  and  burnt  to  the  tune  of  ca  ira  in  the  courts  of 
Bedford  (then  Equality)  House. 

Am  I  to  blame,  if  I  attempt  to  pay  his  Grace's  hostile  re- 
proaches to  me  with  a  friendly  admonition  to  himself?  Can  I 
be  blamed  for  pointing  out  to  him  in  what  manner  he  is  likely 
to  be  affected,  if  the  sect  of  the  cannibal  philosophers  of  Franco 
should  proselytize  nny  considerable  part  of  this  people,  and,  by 
their  joint  proselytizing  arms,  should  conquer  that  government 
to  which  his  Grace  does  not  seem  to  me  to  give  all  the  support 
his  own  security  demands?  Surely  it  is  proper  that  lie,  and 
that  others  like  him,  should  know  the  true  genius  of  this  sect ; 
what  their  opinions  are  ;  what  they  have  done,  and  to  whom ; 
and  what  (if  a  prognostic  is  to  be  formed  from  the  dispositions 
and  actions  ©f  men)  it  is  certain  they  will  do  hereafter.  lie 
ought  to  know  that  they  have  sworn  assistance,  the  only  en- 
gagement they  ever  will  keep,  to  all  in  this  country  who  bear  a 
resemblance  to  themselves,  and  who  think,  as  such,  that  tlic 
whole  duty  of  man  consists  in  destruction.  They  are  a  misallicd 
and  disparaged  branch  of  the  house  of  Nimrod.  They  are  the 
Duke  of  Bedford's  natural  hunters,  and  he  is  their  natural 
game.  Because  he  is  not  very  profoundly  reflecting,  he  sleeps 
in  profound  security  :  they,  on  the  contrary,  are  always  vigi- 
lant, active,  enterprising,  and,  though  far  removed  from  any 
knowledge  which  makes  men  estimable  or  useful,  in  all  the  in- 
struments and  resources  of  evil  their  leaders  are  not  meanly 
instructed  or  insufficiently  furnished.  In  the  French  Revolu- 
tion every  thing  is  new  ;  and,  from  want  of  preparation  to  meet 
so  unlooked-for  an  evil,  every  thing  is  dangerous.  Xever, 
before  this  time,  was  a  set  of  literary  men  converted  into  a 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  275 

gang  of  robbers  and  assassins.  Never  before  did  a  cien  of  bra- 
voes  and  banditti  assume  the  garb  and  tone  of  an  academy  of 
philosophers. 

Let  me  tell  his  Grace,  that  an  union  of  such  characters,  mon- 
strous as  it  seems,  is  not  made  for  producing  despicable  ene- 
mies. But  if  they  are  formidable  as  foes,  as  friends  they  are 
dreadful  indeed.  The  men  of  property  in  France  confiding  in 
a  force  which  seemed  to  be  irresistible,  because  it  had  never 
been  tried,  neglected  to  prepare  for  a  conflict  with  their  ene- 
mies at  their  own  weapons.  They  were  found  in  such  a  situa- 
tion as  the  Mexicans  were,  when  they  were  attacked  by  the 
dogs,  the  cavalry,  the  iron,  and  the  gunpowder,  of  a  handful  of 
bearded  men,  whom  they  did  not  know  to  exist  in  nature.  This 
is  a  comparison  that  some,  I  think,  have  made  ;  and  it  is  just. 
In  France  they  had  their  enemies  within  their  houses.  They 
were  even  in  the  bosoms  of  many  of  them.  But  they  had  not 
sagacity  to  discern  their  savage  character.  They  seemed  tame, 
and  even  caressing.  They  had  nothing  but  douce  humanite  in 
their  mouth.  They  could  not  bear  the  punishment  of  the  mild- 
est laws  on  the  greatest  criminals.  The  slightest  severity  of 
justice  made  their  flesh  creep.  The  very  idea  that  war  existed 
in  the  world  disturbed  their  repose.  Military  glory  was  no 
more,  with  them,  than  a  splendid  infamy.  Hardly  would  they 
hear  of  self-defence,  which  they  reduced  within  such  bounds 
as  to  leave  it  no  defence  at  all.  All  this  while  they  meditated 
the  confiscations  and  massacres  we  have  seen.  Had  any  one 
told  those  unfortunate  noblemen  and  gentlemen  how,  and  by 
whom,  the  grand  fabric  of  the  French  monarchy  under  which 
they  flourished  would  be  subverted,  they  would  not  have  pit- 
ied him  as  a  visionary,  but  would  have  turned  from  him  as 
what  they  call  a  mauvais  plaisant.  Yet  we  have  seen  what  has 
happened.  The  persons  who  have  suffered  from  the  cannibal 
philosophy  of  France  are  so  like  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  that 
nothing  but  his  Grace's  probably  not  speaking  quite  so  good 
French  could  enable  us  to  find  out  any  difference.  A  great 
many  of  them  had  as  pompous  titles  as  he,  and  were  of  full  as 
illustrious  a  race  :  some  few  of  them  had  fortunes  as  ample  : 
s.'vrral  of  them,  without  meaning  the  least  disparagement  to 
the  Duke  of  Bedford,  were  as  wise,  and  as  virtuous,  and  as  val- 
iant, and  as  well  educated,  and  as  complete  in  all  the  linea- 
ments of  men  of  honour,  as  he  is  :  and  to  all  this  they  had  ad- 
ded the  powerful  outguard  of  a  military  profession,  which,  in  its 
nature,  renders  men  somewhat  more  cautious  than  those  who 
have  nothing  to  attend  to  but  the  lazy  enjoyment  of  undis- 
turbed possessions.  But  security  was  their  ruin.  They  are 
dashed  to  pieces  in  the  storm,  and  our  shores  are  covered  with 


27C  BURKE. 

the  wrecks.    If  they  had  been  aware  that  such  a  thing  might 
happen,  such  a  thing  never  could  have  happened. 

I  assure  his  Grace  that,  if  I  state  to  him  the  designs  of  his 
enemies  in  a  manner  which  may  appear  to  him  ludicrous  and 
impossible,  I  tell  him  nothing  that  has  not  exactly  happened, 
point  by  point,  but  twenty-four  miles  from  our  own  shore.  I 
assure  him  that  the  Frenchified  faction,  more  encouraged  than 
others  are  warned  by  what  has  happened  in  France,  look  at 
him  and  his  landed  possessions  as  an  object  at  once  of  curiosity 
and  rapacity.  He  is  made  for  them  in  every  part  of  their 
double  character.  As  robbers,  to  them  he  is  a  noble  booty  ;  as 
spcculatists,  he  is  a  glorious  subject  for  their  experimental 
philosophy.  lie  affords  matter  for  an  extensive  analysis,  in  all 
the  branches  of  their  science,  geometrical,  physical,  civil,  and 
political.  These  philosophers  are  fanatics :  independent  of 
any  interest,  which  if  it  operated  alone  would  make  them  much 
more  tractable,  they  are  carried  with  such  a  headlong  rago 
towards  every  desperate  trial,  that  they  would  sacrifice  the 
whole  human  race  to  the  slightest  of  their  experiments.  I  am 
better  able  to  enter  into  the  character  of  this  description  of  men 
than  the  noble  Duke  can  be.  I  have  lived  long  and  variously 
in  the  world.  Without  any  considerable  pretensions  to  litera- 
ture in  myself,  I  have  aspired  to  the  love  of  letters.  I  have 
lived  for  a  great  many  years  in  habitudes  with  those  who  pro- 
fessed them.  I  can  form  a  tolerable  estimate  of  what  is  likely 
to  happen  from  a  character  chielly  dependent  for  fame  and 
fortune  on  knowledge  and  talent,  as  well  in  its  morbid  and  per- 
verted state  as  in  that  which  is  sound  and  natural.  Naturally 
men  so  formed  and  finished  are  the  first  gifts  of  Providence 
to  the  world.  But  when  they  have  once  thrown  off  the  fear  of 
God,  which  was  in  all  ages  too  often  the  case,  and  the  fear  of 
man,  which  is  now  the  case,  and  when  in  that  state  they  come 
to  understand  one  another,  and  to  act  in  corps,  a  more  dreadful 
calamity  cannot  arise  out  of  Hell  to  scourge  mankind.  Nothing 
can  be  conceived  more  hard  than  the  heart  of  a  thoroughbred 
metaphysician.  It  comes  nearer  to  the  cold  malignity  of  a 
wicked  spirit  than  to  the  frailty  and  passion  of  a  man.  It  is 
like  that  of  the  principle  of  evil  himself,  incorporeal,  pure, 
unmixed,  dephlegmated,  defecated  evil.  It  is  no  easy  operation 
to  eradicate  humanity  from  the  human  breast.  What  Shake- 
speare calls  "the  compunctious  visitings  of  nature"  will  some- 
times knock  at  their  hearts,  and  protest  against  their  mur- 
derous speculations.  But  they  have  a  means  of  compounding 
wTith  their  nature.  Their  humanity  is  not  dissolved.  They 
only  give  it  a  long  prorogation.  They  are  ready  to  declare  tint 
they  do  not  think  two  thousand  years  too  long  a  period  for  the 


A  LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  277 

good  that  they  pursue.  It  is  remarkable  that  they  never  see 
any  way  to  their  projected  good  but  by  the  road  of  some  evil. 
Their  imagination  is  not  fatigued  with  the  contemplation  of 
human  suffering  through  the  wild  waste  of  centuries  added  to 
centuries  of  misery  and  desolation.  Their  humanity  is  at  their 
horizon  ;  and,  like  the  horizon,  it  always  ilies  before  them. 
The  geometricians  and  the  chemists  bring,  the  one  from  the 
dry  bones  of  their  diagrams,  and  the  other  from  the  soot  of 
their  furnaces,  dispositions  that  make  them  worse  than  indif- 
iVivnt  about  those  feelings  and  habitudes  which  are  the  sup- 
port of  the  moral  world.  Ambition  is  come  upon  them  sud- 
denly ;  they  are  intoxicated  with  it,  and  it  has  rendered  them 
fearless  of  the  danger  which  may  from  thence  arise  to  others 
or  to  themselves.  These  philosophers  consider  men,  in  their 
experiments,  no  more  than  they  do  mice  in  an  air-pump,  or 
in  a  recipient  of  mephitic  gas.  Whatever  his  Grace  may  think 
of  himself,  they  look  upon  him,  and  every  thing  ihat  belongs 
to  him,  with  no  more  regard  than  they  do  upon  the  whiskers  of 
that  little,  long-tailed  animal  that  has  been  long  the  game 
of  the  grave,  demure,  insidious,  spring-nailed,  velvet-pawed, 
green-eyed  philosophers,  whether  going  upon  two  legs  or  upon 
four. 

His  Graoe'ft  landed  possessions  are  irresistibly  Inviting  to  an 
(ifirrtrfiiH  experiment.  They  are  a  downright  Insult  upon  the 
rights  of  man.  They  are  more  extensive  than  the  territory  of 
many  of  the  (irecian  republics  ;  and  they  are  without  compari- 
son more  fertile  than  most  of  them.  There  are  now  republics 
in  Italy,  in  (iennany,  and  in  Switzerland,  which  do  not  possess 
any  thing  like-  so  fair  and  ample  a  domain.  There  is  scope  for 
seven  philosophers  to  proceed  in  their  analytical  experiments, 
upon  Harrington's  seven  different  forms  of  republics,  in  the 
acres  of  this  one  Duke.  Hitherto  they  have  been  wholly  un- 
productive to  speculation  ;  fitted  for  nothing  but  to  fatten  bul- 

;ind  to  produce  grain  for  beer,  still  more  to  stupefy  the 
dull  English  understanding.  Abbe  Sieves  has  whole  nests  of 
pigeon-holes  full  of  constitutions  ready  made,  ticketed,  sorted, 
and  numbered;  suited  to  every  season  and  every  fancy  ;  some 
with  the  top  of  the  pattern  tit  the  bottom,  and  some  with  the 
bottom  at  the  top;  some  plain,  some  flowered;  some  distin- 
UMii-'hcd  for  their  simplicity,  others  for  their  complexity ;  some 
of  blood  colour;  some  of  boue  de  Paris;  some  with  directories, 
others  without  a  direction;  some  with  councils  of  elders  and 
councils  of  youngsters  ;  some  without  any  Council  at  all.  Some 
where  the  electors  choose  thu  representatives  ;  others,  where 

presentatives  choose  the  electors.  Some  in  long  coats, 
and  some  in  short  cloaks ;  some  with  pantaloons ;  some  with- 


278  BURKE. 

out  breeches.  Some  with  five-shilling  qualifications;  some 
totally  unqualified.  So  that  no  constitution-fancier  may  go 
unsuited  from  his  shop,  provided  he  loves  a  pattern  of  pillage, 
oppression,  arbitrary  imprisonment,  confiscation,  exile,  revolu- 
tionary judgment,  and  legalized  premeditated  murder,  in  any 
shapes  into  which  they  can  be  put.  What  a  pity  it  is  that  the 
progress  of  experimental  philosophy  should  be  checked  by  his 
Grace's  monopoly  !  Such  are  their  sentiments,  I  assure  him ; 
such  is  their  language,  when  they  dare  to  speak  ;  and  such  are 
their  proceedings,  when  they  have  the  means  to  act. 

Their  geographers  and  geometricians  have  been  some  time  out 
of  practice.  It  is  some  time  since  they  have  divided  their  own 
country  into  squares.  That  figure  has  lost  the  charms  of  its 
novelty.  They  want  new  lands  for  new  trials.  It  is  not  only 
the  geometricians  of  the  republic  that  find  him  a  good  subject, 
the  chemists  have  bespoken  him  after  the  geometricians  have 
done  with  him.  As  the  first  set  have  an  eye  on  his  (I race's 
lands,  the  chemists  arc  not  less  taken  with  his  buildings.  They 
consider  mortar  as  a  very  anti-revolutionary  invention  in  its 
present  state  ;  but,  properly  employed,  an  admirable  material 
for  overturning  all  establishments.  They  have  found  that  the 
gunpowder  of  ruins  is  far  the  fittest  for  making  other  ruins,  and 
so  adinjinitwn.  They  have  calculated  what  quantity  of  matter 
convertible  into  nitre  is  to  be  found  in  Bedford  House,  in  AVo- 
burn  Abbey,  and  in  what  his  Grace  and  his  trustees  have  still 
suffered  to  stand  of  that  foolish  royalist  Inigo  Jones,  in  Covent 
Garden.  Churches,  play-houses,  coffee-houses,  all  alike  are 
destined  to  be  mingled,  and  equalized,  and  blended  into  one 
common  rubbish  ;  and,  well  sifted  and  lixiviated,  to  crystallize 
into  true,  democratic,  explosive,  insurrectionary  nitre.  Their 
academy  del  Cimento,  (per  antiphrasin,)  with  Morveau  and  Jlas- 
senfrats  at  its  head,  have  computed  that  the  brave  sans-culottes 
may  make  war  on  all  the  aristocracy  of  Europe  for  a  twelve- 
month, out  of  the  rubbish  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  buildings.3 

While  the  Morveaux  and  Priestleys  are  proceeding  with  these 

3  There  is  nothing  on  which  the  leaders  value  themselves  more  than  on  tho 
chemical  operations  by  which  they  convert  the  pride  of  aristocracy  to  an  instru- 
ment of  its  own  destruction.  They  tell  us  that  hitherto  things  "  had  not  yet  heeu 
properly  and  in  a  revolutionary  manner  explored."  —  "The  strong  chateaux^ 
those  feudal  fortresses  that  ircre  ordered  to  be.  demolished,  attracted  next  the  at- 
tention of  your  committee.  Nature  there  had  secretly  regained  her  nahts,  and 
had  produced  saltpetre  for  the  purpose,  as  it  should  seem,  ofj\tcilitatinr/  the  exe- 
cution of  your  decree  by  preparing  the  means  of  destruction.  From  the.se  ruins, 
which  still  frown  on  the  liberties  of  the  republic,  we  have  extracted  the  means 
of  producing  good ;  and  those  piles  which  have  hitherto  glutted  the  pride  of 
despots,  will  soon  furnish  wherewithal  to  tame  the  traitor?,  and  to  overwhelm 
the  disaffected."  —  Autlwr's  Note. 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  279 

experiments  upon  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  houses,  the  Sieyos, 
and  the  rest  of  the  analytical  legislators  and  constitution- 
venders,  are  quite  as  busy  in  their  trade  of  decomposing  organ- 
ization, in  forming  his  Grace's  vassals  into  primary  assemblies, 
national  guards,  first,  second,  and  third  requisitioners,  commit- 
tees of  research,  conductors  of  the  travelling  guillotine,  judges 
of  revolutionary  tribunals,  legislative  hangmen,  supervisors  of 
domiciliary  visitation,  exactors  of  forced  loans,  and  assessors  of 
the  maximum. 

The  din  of  all  this  smithery  may  some  time  or  other  possibly 
wake  this  noble  Duke,  and  push  him  to  an  endeavour  to  save 
some  little  matter  from  their  experimental  philosophy.  If  he 
pleads  his  grants  from  the  Crown,  he  is  ruined  at  the  outset. 
If  he  pleads  he  has  received  them  from  the  pillage  of  supersti- 
tious corporations,  this  indeed  will  stagger  them  a  little,  be- 
cause they  are  enemies  to  all  corporations,  and  to  all  religion. 
However,  they  will  soon  recover  themselves,  and  will  tell  his 
Grace,  or  his  learned  counsel,  that  all  such  property  belongs  to 
the  nation;  and  that  it  would  be  more  wise  for  him,  if  he  wishes 
to  live  the  natural  term  of  a  citizen,  (that  is,  according  to  Con- 
dorcet's  calculation,  six  months  on  an  average,)  not  to  pass  for 
an  usurper  upon  the  national  property.  This  is  what  the  ser- 
jcants  at  law  of  the  rights  of  man  will  say  to  the  puny  apprcn- 
tl'-(A  of  the  common  law  of  England. 

Is  the  genius  of  philosophy  not  yet  known  ?  You  may  as  well 
think  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries  was  well  protected  with  the 
cords  of  riband  insultingly  stretched  by  the  National  Assembly 
to  keep  the  sovereign  canaille  from  intruding  on  the  retirement 
of  the  poor  King  of  the  French,  as  that  such  flimsy  cobwebs 
will  stand  between  the  savages  of  the  Revolution  and  their 
natural  prey.  Deep  philosophers  are  no  triflers ;  brave  sans- 
culottes are  no  formalists.  They  will  no  more  regard  a  Mar- 
quess of  Tavistock  than  an  Abbot  of  Tavistock ;  the  Lord  of 
AV'obuni  will  not  be  more  respectable  in  their  eyes  than  the 
Prior  of  Woburn  ;  they  will  make  no  difference  between  the 
superior  of  a  Covent  Garden  of  nuns  and  of  a  Coven t  Garden 
of  another  description.4  They  will  not  care  a  rush  whether  his 
coat  is  long  or  short ;  whether  the  colour  be  purple  or  blue  and 
bufC.  They  will  not  trouble  their  heads  with  what  part  of  his 
head  his  hair  is  cut  from  ;  and  they  will  look  with  equal  respect 
on  a  tonsure  and  a  crop.  Their  only  question  will  be  that  of 
their  Lrt/rntlrc,  or  some  other  of  their  legislative  butchers,  how 
he  cuts  up  ;  how  he  tallows  in  the  caul,  or  on  the  kidneys. 

4  Covent  Garden  theatre,  in  London,  then  belonged  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 
In  what  precedes,  Burke  alludes  to  the  Duke's  other  titles,  as  Baron  of  Woburn, 
and  Marquess  of  Tavietock. 


280  BURKE. 

Is  it  not  a  singular  phenomenon  that,  whilst  the  sans-culotte 
carcass-butchers  and  the  philosophers  of  the  shambles  are 
pricking  their  dotted  lines  upon  his  hide,  and,  like  the  print  of 
the  poor  ox  that  we  see  in  the  shop-windows  at  Charing  Cross, 
alive  as  he  is,  and  thinking  no  harm  in  the  world,  he  is  divided 
into  rumps,  and  sirloins,  and  briskets,  and  into  all  sorts  of  pieces 
for  roasting,  boiling,  and  stewing, —  that,  all  the  while  they  :iro 
measuring  him,  his  Grace  is  measuring  me  ;  is  invidiously  com- 
paring the  bounty  of  the  Crown  with  the  deserts  of  the  defender 
of  his  order,  and  in  the  same  moment  fawning  on  those  who 
have  the  knife  half  out  of  the  sheath ;  — poor  innocent  ! 

"Pleased  to  the  last,  he  crops  the  flowery  foorl, 
Ami  licks  the  hand  just  raised  to  sheet  his  blood." 

No  man  lives  too  long,  who  lives  to  do  with  spirit,  and  suffer 
with  resignation,  what  Providence  pleases  to  command,  or  in- 
flict ;  but  indeed  they  are  sharp  incommoditios  which  beset  old 
age.  It  was  but  the  other  day,  that,  on  putting  in  order  some 
things  which  had  been  brought  here  on  my  taking  leave  of  Lon- 
don for  ever,  I  looked  over  a  number  of  fino  portraits,  most  of 
them  of  persons  now  dead,  but  whose  society,  in  my  bettor 
days,  made  this  a  proud  and  happy  place.  Amongst  these  was 
the  picture  of  Lord  Keppel.  It  was  painted  by  an  artist  worthy 
of  the  subject,  the  excellent  friend  of  that  excellent  man  from 
their  earliest  youth,  and  a  common  friend  of  us  both,  with 
whom  we  lived  for  many  years  without  a  moment  of  coldnos, 
of  peevishness,  of  jealousy,  or  of  jar,  to  the  day  of  our  final 
separation. 

I  ever  looked  on  Lord  Koppol  as  one  of  the  greatest  and  best 
men  of  his  age  ;  and  I  loved  and  cultivated  him  accordingly. 
He  was  much  in  my  heart,  and  I  believe  I  was  in  his  to  the  very 
last  beat.  It  was  after  his  trial  at  Portsmouth  that  he  gave  me 
this  picture.  With  what  zeal  and  anxious  affection  I  attended 
him  through  that  his  agony  of  glory ;  what  part  my  son  took 
in  the  early  flush  and  enthusiasm  of  his  virtue,  and  the  pious 
passion  with  which  he  attached  himself  to  all  my  connections  ; 
with  what  prodigality  we  both  squandered  ourselves  in  courting 
almost  every  sort  of  enmity  for  his  sake,  — I  believe  he  felt,  just 
as  I  should  have  felt  such  friendship  on  such  an  occasion.  I  par- 
took indeed  of  this  honour,  with  several  of  the  first  and  best  and 
ablest  in  the  kingdom,  but  I  was  behindhand  with  none  of  them; 
and  I  am  sure  that  if,  to  the  eternal  disgrace  of  this  nation,  and 
to  the  total  annihilation  of  every  trace  of  honour  and  virtue  in 
it,  things  had  taken  a  different  turn  from  what  they  did,  I 
should  have  attended  him  to  the  quarter-deck  with  no  less  good 
will  and  more  pride,  though  with  far  other  feelings,  than  I  par- 


A   LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  281 

took  of  the  general  flow  of  national  joy  that  attended  the  justice 
that  was  done  to  his  virtue. 

Pardon,  my  Lord,  the  feeble  garrulity  of  age,  which  loves  to 
diffuse  itself  in  discourse  of  the  departed  great.  At  my  years 
we  live  in  retrospect  alone  ;  and.  wholly  unfitted  for  the  society 
of  vigorous  life,  we  enjoy  the  best  balm  to  all  wounds,  the  con- 
solation of  friendship  in  those  only  whom  we  have  lost  for  ever. 
Feeling  the  loss  of  Lord  Keppel  at  all  times,  at  no  time  did  I 
feel  it  so  much  as  o.n  the  first  day  when  I  was  attacked  in  the 
House  of  Lords. 

Had  he  lived,  that  reverend  form  would  have  risen  in  its 
place,  and,  with  a  mild,  parental  reprehension  to  his  nephew 
the  Duke  of  Bedford,  he  would  have  told  him  that  the  favour 
of  that  gracious  Prince  who  had  honoured  his  virtues  with  the 
government  of  the  navy  of  Great  Britain,  and  with  a  seat  in  the 
hereditary  great  council  of  his  kingdom,  was  not  undeservedly 
shown  to  the  friend  of  the  best  portion  of  his  life,  and  his  faith- 
ful companion  and  counsellor  under  his  rudest  trials.  He  would 
have  told  him  that,  to  whomever  else  these  reproaches  might 
!>»>  becoming,  they  were  not  decorous  in  his  near  kindred.  He 
would  have  told  him  that  when  men  in  that  rank  lose  decorum 
they  lose  every  tiling. 

On  thar  day  1  had  a  loss  in  Lord  Keppel  ;  but  the  public  loss 
of  him  in  this  awful  crisis!—  I  speak  from  much  knowledge  of 
the  person,  he  never  would  have  listened  to  any  compromise 
with  the  rabble  rout  of  this  sans-culotterie  of  France.  His 
goodness  of  heart,  his  reason,  his  taste,  his  public  duty,  his 
principles,  his  prejudices,  would  have  repelled  him  for  ever 
from  all  connection  with  that  horrid  medley  of  madness,  vice, 
impiety,  and  crime. 

Lord  Keppel  had  two  countries, — one  of  descent,  and  one  of 
birth.    Their  interest  and  their  glory  are  the  same  ;    and  his 
mind  was  capacious  of  both.    His  family  was  noble,  and  it  was 
Dutch  ;  that  is,  ho  was  of  the  oldest  and  purest  nobility  that 
Europe  can  hoa<r,  among  a  people  renowned  above  all  others 
for  love  of  their  native  land.    Though  it  was  never  shown  in 
insult  to  any  human  being,  Lord  Keppel  was  something  high. 
It  was  a  wild  stock  of  pride,  on  which  the  tenderest  of  all  hearts 
had  grafted  the  milder  virtues,      lie  valued  ancient  nobility; 
nd  he  was  not  disinclined  to  augment  it  with  new  honours. 
Ie  valued  the  old  nobility  and  the  new,  not  as  an  excuse  for 
^glorious  sloth,  but.  as  an  incitement  to  virtuous  activity.     He 
Misidered  it  a  •  a  >ort  of  cure  for  selfishness  and  a  narrow  mind; 
mceiving  that  a  man  born  in  an  elevated  place  in  himself  was 
nothing,  but  every  thing  in  what  went  before  and  what  was  to 
come  after  him.    Without  much  speculation,  but  by  the  suro 


282  BURKE. 

instinct  of  ingenuous  feelings,  and  by  the  dictates  of  plain,  un- 
sophisticated natural  understanding,  he  felt  that  no  great  com- 
monwealth could  by  any  possibility  long  subsist  without  a  body 
of  some  hind  or  other  of  nobility,  decorated  with  honour,  and 
fortified  by  privilege.  This  nobility  forms  the  chain  that  con- 
nects the  ages  of  a  nation,  which  otherwise  (with  Mr.  Paine) 
would  soon  be  taught  that  no  one  generation  can  bind  another. 
He  felt  that  no  political  fabric  could  be  well  made  without  some 
such  order  of  things  as  might,  through  a  series  of  time,  afford  a 
rational  hope  of  securing  unity,  coherence,  consistency,  and 
stability  to  the  State.  He  felt  that  nothing  else  can  protect  it 
against  the  levity  of  Courts,  and  the  greater  levity  of  the  multi- 
tude. That  to  talk  of  hereditary  monarchy,  without  any  thing 
else  of  hereditary  reverence  in  the  commonwealth,  was  a  low- 
minded  absurdity,  fit  only  for  those  detestable  "fools  aspiring 
to  be  hnaves  "  who  began  to  forge  in  1789  the  false  money  of 
the  French  constitution.  That  it  is  one  fatal  objection  to  all 
new-fancied  and  new-fabricated  republics,  (among  a  people 
who,  once  possessing  such  an  advantage,  have  wickedly  and  in- 
solently rejected  it,)  that  the  prejudice  of  an  old  nobility  is  a 
thing  that  cannot  be  made.  It  may  be  improved,  it  may  be  cor- 
rected, it  may  be  replenished ;  men  may  be  taken  from  it  or 
aggregated  to  it,  but  the  tiling  itself  is  matter  of  inveterate 
opinion,  and  therefore  cannot  be  matter  of  mere  positive  insti- 
tution. He  felt  that  this  nobility  in  fact  does  not  exist  in  wrong 
of  other  orders  of  the  State,  but  by  them,  and  for  them. 

I  knew  the  man  I  speak  of:  and,  if  we  can  divine  the  future 
out  of  what  we  collect  from  the  past,  no  person  living  would 
look  with  more  scorn  and  horror  on  the  impious  parricide  com- 
mitted on  all  their  ancestry,  and  on  the  desperate  attainder 
passed  on  all  their  posterity,  by  the  Orleans,  and  the  Rochefou- 
caults,  and  the  Fayettes,  and  the  Yiscomtes  de  Xoailles,  and 
the  false  Perigords,  and  the  long  ct  ccr.tcra  of  the  perfidious 
sans-culottes  of  the  Court,  who  like  demoniacs,  possessed  with  a 
spirit  of  fallen  pride  and  inverted  ambition,  abdicated  their  dig- 
nities, disowned  their  families,  betrayed  the  most  sacred  of  all 
trusts,  and,  by  breaking  to  pieces  a  great  link  of  society  and  all 
the  cramps  and  holdings  of  the  State,  brought  eternal  confusion 
and  desolation  on  their  country.  For  the  fate  of  the  miscreant 
parricides  themselves  he  would  have  had  no  pity.  Compassion 
for  the  myriads  of  men,  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy, 
who  by  their  means  have  perished  in  prisons,  or  on  scaffolds,  or 
are  pining  in  beggary  and  exile,  would  leave,  no  room  in  his,  or 
in  any  well-formed  mind,  for  any  such  sensation.  We  are  not 
made  at  once  to  pity  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed. 

Looking  to  his  Batavian  descent,  how  could  he  bear  to  behold 


A    LETTER  TO   A   NOBLE   LORD.  283 

his  kindred,  the  descendants  of  the  brave  nobility  of  Holland, 
•whose  blood,  prodigally  poured  out,  had,  more  than  all  the 
canals,  meres,  and  inundations  of  their  country,  protected  their 
independence,  to  behold  them  bowed  in  the  basest  servitude  to 
the  basest  and  vilest  of  the  human  race  ;  in  servitude  to  those 
who  in  no  respect  were  superior  in  dignity,  or  could  aspire  to  a 
better  place  than  that  of  hangmen  to  the  tyrants,  to  whose 
scepterecl  pride  they  had  opposed  an  elevation  of  soul  that 
surmounted,  and  overpowered,  the  loftiness  of  Castile,  the 
haughtiness  of  Austria,  and  the  overbearing  arrogance  of 
France  ? 

Could  he  with  patience  bear,  that  the  children  of  that  nobility 
who  would  have  deluged  their  country  and  given  it  to  the  sea, 
rather  than  submit  to  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  who  was  then  in 
his  meridian  glory,  when  his  arms  were  conducted  by  the  Tu- 
rennes,  by  the  Luxembourgs,  by  the  Boufflers  ;  when  his  coun- 
cils were  directed  by  the  Colberts  and  the  Louvois  ;  when  his 
tribunals  were  filled  by  the  Lamoignons  and  the  Daguessaus,— 
that  these  should  be  given  up  to  the  cruel  sport  of  the  Piche- 
grus,  the  Jourdans,  the  Santerres,  under  the  Rolands,  the  Bris- 
sots,  and  Gorfas,  and  llobespierres,  the  Ileubels,  the  Carnots, 
and  Talliens,  and  Dantons,  and  the  whole  tribe  of  regicides, 
robbers,  and  revolutionary  judges,  that,  from  the  rotten  carcass 
of  their  own  murdered  country,  have  poured  out  innumerable 
swarms  of  the  lowest,  and  at  once  the  most  destructive,  of  the 
a  of  animated  nature,  which,  like  columns  of  locusts,  have 
laid  waste  the  fairest  part  of  the  wprld  ? 

Would  Keppel  have  borne  to  see  the  ruin  of  the  virtuous 
patricians,  that  happy  union  of  the  noble  and  the  burgher,  who, 
with  signal  prudence  and  integrity,  had  long  governed  the  cit- 
ies of  the  confederate  republic,  the  cherishing  fathers  of  their 
country,  who,  denying  commerce  to  themselves,  made  it  nour- 
ish in  a  manner  unexampled  under  their  protection?  Could 
Keppel  have  borne  that  a  vile  faction  should  totally  destroy 
this  harmonious  construction,  in  favour  of  a  robbing  democracy, 
founded  on  the  spurious  rights  of  man? 

lie  was  no  great  clerk,  but  lie  was  perfectly  well  versed  in  the 
interests  of  Europe,  and  he  could  not  have  heard  with  patience, 
that  the  country  of  Grotius,  the  cradle  of  the  law  of  nations, 
and  one  of  the  richest  repositories  of  all  law,  should  be  taught 
a  new  code  by  the  ignorant  flippancy  of  Thomas  Paine,  the  pre- 
sumptuous foppery  of  La  Fayette,  with  his  stolen  rights  of  man 
in  his  hand,  the  wild,  profligate  intrigue  and  turbulency  of 
Murat,  and  the  irapi^bs  sophistry  of  Condorcet,  in  his  insolent 
addresses  to  the  Batavian  republic. 

Could  Keppel,  who  idolized  the  house  of  Nassau,  who  was 


284  BURKE. 

himself  given  to  England  along  with  the  blessings  of  the  British 
and  Dutch  Revolutions  ;  with  revolutions  of  stability;  with  rev- 
olutions which  consolidated  and  married  the  liberties  and  the 
interests  of  the  two  nations  for  ever, — could  he  see  the  fountain 
of  British  liberty  itself  in  servitude  to  France?  Could  he  see 
with  patience  a  Prince  of  Orange  expelled  as  a  sort  of  diminu- 
tive despot,  with  every  kind  of  contumely,  from  the  country 
which  that  family  of  deliverers  had  so  often  rescued  from  sla- 
very, and  obliged  to  live  in  exile  in  another  country,  which  owes 
its  liberty  to  his  House  ?  5 

Would  Keppel  have  heard  with  patience  that  the  conduct  to 
be  held  on  such  occasions  was  to  become  short  by  the  knees  to 
the  faction  of  the  homicides,  to  entreat  them  quietly  to  retire? 
or,  if  the  fortune  of  war  should  drive  them  from  their  first 
wicked  and  unprovoked  invasion,  that  no  security  should  be 
taken,  no  arrangement  made,  no  barrier  formed,  no  alliance  en- 
tered into  for  the  security  of  that  which,  under  a  foreign  name, 
is  the  most  precious  part  of  England?  What  would  lie  have 
said,  if  it  was  even  proposed  that  the  Austrian  Netherlands 
(which  ought  to  be  a  barrier  to  Holland,  and  the  tie  of  an  alli- 
ance, to  protect  her  against  any  species  of  rule  that  might  be 
erected,  or  even  be  restored  in  France)  should  be  formed  into  a 
republic  under  her  influence,  and  dependent  upon  her  power? 

But,  above  all,  what  would  he  have  said,  if  he  had  heard  it 
made  a  matter  of  accusation  against  me,  by  his  nephew  the 
Duke  of  Bedford,  that  I  was  the  author  of  the  war?  Had  I  a 
mind  to  keep  that  high  distinction  to  myself,  as  from  pride  I 
might,  but  from  justice  I  dare  not,  he  would  have  snatched  his 
share  of  it  from  my  hand,  and  held  it  with  the  grasp  of  a  dying 
convulsion  to  his  end. 

It  would  be  a  most  arrogant  presumption  in  me  to  assume  to 
myself  the  glory  of  what  belongs  to  his  Majesty,  and  to  his  Min- 
isters, and  to  his  Parliament,  and  to  the  far  greater  majority  of 
his  faithful  people:  but,  had  I  stood  alone  to  counsel,  and  that 
all  were  determined  to  be  guided  by  my  advice,  and  to  follow  it 
implicitly,  then  I  should  have  been  the  sole  author  of  a  war. 
But  it  should  have  been  a  war  on  my  ideas'  and  my  principles. 
However,  let  his  Grace  think  as  he  may  of  my  demerits  with 
regard  to  the  war  with  regicide,  he  will  find  my  guilt  confined 
to  that  alone.  He  never  shall,  with  the  smallest  colour  of  rea- 

5  The  Prince  of  Orange  was  at  that  time  living  in  England.  He  had  been 
Stadtholder  in  1794,  when  the  French,  having  already  kindled  and  blown  r.p 
their  revolutionary  lires  throughout  the  country,  invaded  Holland  with  large 
forces,  and  turned  every  thing  topsy-turvy  there.  The  Prince  was  of  the  samo 
illustrious  family  which  furnished  the  heroic,  William  the  Third  to  England, 
and,  along  with  him,  security  to  the  English  liberties. 


FRANCE   AT   WAR   WITH   HUMANITY.  285 

son,  accuse  me  of  being  the  author  of  a  peace  with  regicide. 
But  that  is  high  matter,  and  ought  not  to  be  mixed  with  any 
thing  of  so  little  moment  as  what  may  belong  to  me,  or  even  to 
the  Duke  of  Bedford.6 

I  have  the  honour  to  be,  &c. 

EDMUXD  BUKKE. 


FRANCE  AT  WAR  WITH  HUMANITY.7 

I  AM  sure  you  cannot  forget  with  how  much  uneasiness  we 
li'-ard,  in  conversation,  the  language  of  more  than  one  gentle- 
man at  the  opening  of  this  contest,  "that  he  was  willing  to  try 
the  war  for  a  year  or  two,  and,  if  it  did  not  succeed,  then  to 
vote  for  peace."  As  if  war  was  ;i  mutter  of  experiment !  As 
if  you  could  take  it  up  or  lay  it  down  as  an  idle  frolic  !  As  if 
the  dire  goddess  that  presides  over  it,  with  her  murderous 
!-]>ear  in  her  hand,  and  her  gorgon  at  her  breast,  was  a  coquette 
to  be  flirted  with  !  We  ought  with  reverence  to  approach  that 
tremendous  divinity,  that  loves  courage,  but  commands  coun- 
sel. War  never  leaves  where  it  found  a  nation.  It  is  never  to 
be  entered  into  without  mature  deliberation,— not  a  delibera- 
tion lengthened  out  into  a  perplexing  indecision,  but  a  deliber- 
ation leading  to  a  sure  and  fixed  judgment.  When  so  taken 
up,  it  is  not  to  be  abandoned  without  reason  as  valid,  as 
fully  and  as  extensively  considered.  Peace  may  be  made  as 
unadvisedly  as  war.  Nothing  is  so  rash  as  fear;  and  the  coun- 
cils of  pusillanimity  very  rarely  put  off,  whilst  they  are  always 
sure  to  aggravate,  the  evils  from  which  they  would  fly. 

In  that  great  war  carried  on  against  Louis  the  Fourteenth, 
>r  near  eighteen  years,  government  snared  no  pains  to  satisfy 

The  whole  Russell  family  rrtuin,  to  this  day,  an  irrepressible  grudge 
rain>t  Hnrke  on  account  of  this  L<ttcr.  One  of  them  calls  him  "an  inspired 
lob."  A  snobbish  saying, —  hut  not  the  saying  of  an  insjiired  snob. 
7  I'nder  this  heading,  1  give  a  portion  of  the  first  of  three  J.i'tfrrs,  published 
171HJ,  the  title  in  full  being1  as  follow*:  "Three  Letters  ;iddre-scd  to  a  Member 
the  rresent  Parliament,  on  the  Proposals  for  1'eare  with  Hie  Regicide  Direc- 
>ry  of  1-  ranee.  IT'.Ki."  In  this  work  the  author  discusses  a  great  variety  of  top- 
S  all  in  his  usual  profound,  comprehensive,  and  eloquent  manner;  and  it  is 
jiuarkable  that  his  imagination  here  appears  more  sensitive,  mure  opulent,  and 
MI-I:  redundant,  than  in  any  of  his  previous  writings.  Most  of  the  discussions, 
AS  ever,  are  not  particularly  suited  to  the  uses  of  this  volume,  even  if  there 
n-ic  room  for  them;  which  there  is  not.  But  the  following  extract,  besides  its 
jh  literary  value,  is  fraught  with  wise  practical  leach  ings,  which  may  well  be 
pressed  here,  ami  now. 


286  BURKE. 

the  nation,  that,  though  they  were  to  be  animated  by  a  desire  of 
glory,  glory  was  not  their  ultimate  object ;  but  that  every 
thing  dear  to  them,  in  religion,  in  law,  in  liberty,  every  thing 
which  as  freemen,  as  Englishmen,  and  as  citizens  of  the  great 
commonwealth  of  Christendom,  they  had  at  heart,  was  then  at 
stake.  This  was  to  know  the  true  art  of  gaining  the  affections 
and  confidence  of  a  high-minded  people  ;  this  was  to  under- 
stand human  nature.  A  danger  to  avert  a  danger,  a  present 
inconvenience  and  suffering  to  prevent  a  foreseen  future  and  a 
worse  calamity, — these  are  the  motives  that  belong  to  an  ani- 
mal who,  in  his  constitution,  is  at  once  adventurous  and  provi- 
dent, circumspect  and  daring ;  whom  his  Creator  has  made,  as 
the  poet  says,  "of  large  discourse,  looking  before  and  after." 
But  never  can  a  vehement  and  sustained  spirit  of  fortitude  be 
kindled  in  a  people  by  a  war  of  calculation.  It  has  nothing 
that  can  keep  the  mind  erect  under  the  gusts  of  adversity. 
Even  where  men  are  willing,  as  sometimes  they  are,  to  barter 
their  blood  for  lucre,  to  hazard  their  safety  for  the  gratification 
of  their  avarice,  the  passion  which  animates  them  to  that  sort 
of  conflict,  like  all  the  short-sighted  passions,  must  see  its 
objects  distinct  and  near  at  hand.  The  passions  of  the  lower 
order  are  hungry  and  impatient.  Speculative  plunder ;  contin- 
gent spoil ;  future,  long  adjourned,  uncertain  booty ;  pillage 
which  must  enrich  a  late  posterity,  and  which  possibly  may 
not  reach  to  posterity  at  all,— these,  for  any  length  of  time, 
will  never  support  a  mercenary  war.  The  people  are  in  the 
right.  The  calculation  of  profit  in  all  such  wars  is  false.  On 
balancing  the  account  of  such  wars,  ten  thousand  hogsheads  of 
sugar  are  purchased  at  ten  thousand  times  their  price.  The 
blood  of  man  should  never  be  shed  but  to  redeem  the  blood  of 
man.  It  is  well  shed  for  our  family,  for  our  friends,  for  our 
God,  for  our  country,  for  our  kind.  The  rest  is  vanity ;  the 
rest  is  crime. 

In  the  war  of  the  Grand  Alliance,8  most  of  these  considera- 
tions voluntarily  and  naturally  had  their  part.  Some  were 
pressed  into  the  service.  The  political  interest  easily  went  in 
the  track  of  the  natural  sentiment.  In  the  reverse  course  the 
carriage  does  not  follow  freely.  I  am  sure  the  natural  feeling 
is  a  far  more  predominant  ingredient  in  this  war  than  in  that 
of  any  other  that  ever  was  waged  by  this  kingdom. 

If  the  war  made  to  prevent  the  union  of  two  crowns  upon  one 

8  The  "Grand  Alliance"  here  referred  to  was  an  alliance  of  Groat  Britain, 
Austria,  ami  the  States-'.  Jeneral  of  Holland,  against  the  union  of  the  French  and 
Spanish  crowns  in  the  Bourbon  family.  It  was  in  the  war  under  tbat  alliance 
that  Marlborough  gained  his  great  victories  against  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  in 
the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  ceutury. 


FRAXCE   AT   WAR   WITH   HUMANITY.  287 

head  was  a  just  war  ;  this,  which  is  made  to  prevent  the  tearing 
of  all  crowns  from  all  heads  which  ought  to  wear  them,  and 
with  the  crowns  to  smite  off  the  sacred  heads  themselves,  this 
is  a  just  war. 

If  a  war  to  prevent  Louis  the  Fourteenth  from  imposing  his 
religion  was  just,  a  war  to  prevent  the  murderers  of  Louis  the 
Sixteenth  from  imposing  their  irreligion  upon  us  is  just ;  a  war 
to  prevent  the  operation  of  a  system,  which  makes  life  without 
dignity,  and  death  without  hope,  is  a  just  war. 

If  to  preserve  political  independence  and  civil  freedom  to  na- 
tions was  a  just  ground  of  war  ;  a  war  to  preserve  national  inde- 
pendence, property,  liberty,  life,  and  honour,  from  certain, 
universal  havoc,  is  a  war  just,  necessary,  manly,  pious;  and  we 
are  bound  to  persevere  in  it  by  every  principle,  Divine  and 
human,  as  long  as  the  system  which  menaces  them  all,  and  all 
equally,  has  an  existence  in  the  world. 

You,  who  have  looked  at  this  matter  with  as  fair  and  impar- 
tial an  eye  as  can  be  united  with  a  feeling  heart,  you  will  not 
think  it  a  hardy  assertion,  when  I  affirm  that  it  were  far  better 
to  be  conquered  by  any  other  nation  than  to  have  this  faction 
for  a  neighbour.  Before  I  felt  myself  authorized  to  say  this,  I 
considered  the  state  of  all  the  countries  in  Europe,  for  these  last, 
three  hundred  years,  which  have  been  obliged  to  submit  to  a 
foreign  lav/.  In  most  of  these  I  found  the  condition  of  the  an- 
nexed countries  even  better,  certainly  not  worse,  than  the  lot 
of  those  which  were  the  patrimony  of  the  conqueror.  They 
wanted  some  blessings,  but  they  were  free  from  many  great 
evils.  They  wore  rich  and  tranquil.  Such  was  Artois,  Flan- 
ders, Lorrain,  Alsatia,  under  the  old  government  of  France. 
Such  was  Silesia  under  the  King  of  Prussia.  They,  who  are  to 
live  in  the  vicinity  of  this  new  fabric,  are  to  prepare  to  live  in 
perpetual  conspiracies  and  seditions  ;  and  to  end,  at  last,  in  be- 
ing conquered,  if  not  to  her  dominion,  to  her  resemblance.  But 
vv-e  talk  of  conquest  by  other  nations,  it  is  only  to  put  a 
This  is  the  only  power  in  Europe  by  which  it  is  possible 
we  should  be  conquered.  To  live  under  the  continual  dread  of 
immeasurable  evils  is  itself  a  grievous  calamity.  To  live 

ithout  the  dread  of  them  is  to  turn  the  danger  into  the  disas- 
ter. The  inllucnce  of  such  a  France  is  equal  to  a  war ;  its  ex- 
ample is  more  wasting  than  u  hostile  irruption.  The  hostility 
with  any  other  power  is  separable  and  accidental ;  this  power, 
by  the  very  condition  of  its  existence,  by  its  very  essential  con- 
stitution, is  in  a  state  of  hostility  with  us,  and  with  all  civilized 
people. 

A  government  of  the  nature  of  that  set  up  at  our  very  door 
has  never  been  hitherto  seen,  or  even  imagined,  in  Europe. 


288  BURKE. 

What  our  relation  to  it  will  be  cannot  be  judged  by  other  rela- 
tions. It  is  a  serious  thing  to  have  connection  with  a  people 
who  live  only  under  positive,  arbitrary,  and  changeable  institu- 
tions ;  and  those  not  perfected,  nor  supplied,  nor  explained,  by 
any  common  acknowledged  rule  of  moral  science.  I  remember 
that  in  one  of  my  last  conversations  with  the  late  Lord  Camden, 
we  were  struck  much  in  the  same  manner  with  the  abolition  in 
France  of  the  law,  as  a  science  of  methodized  and  artificial 
equity.  France,  since  her  Revolution,  is  under  the  sway  of  a 
seel  whose  leaders  have  deliberately,  at  one  stroke,  demolished 
tlie  whole  body  of  that  jurisprudence  which  France  had  pretty 
nearly  in  common  with  other  civilized  countries.  In  that  juris- 
prudence were  contained  the  elements  and  principles  of  the 
law  of  nations,  the  great  ligament  of  mankind.  With  the  law 
they  have  of  course  destroyed  all  seminaries  in  which  jurispru- 
dence was  taught,  as  well  us  all  the  corporations  established  for 
its  conservation.  I  have  not  heard  of  any  country,  whether  in 
Europe  or  Asia,  or  even  in  Africa  on  this  side  of  Mount  Atlas, 
which  is  wholly  without  some  such  colleges  and  such  corpora- 
tions, except  France.  Xo  man,  in  a  public  or  private  concern, 
can  divine  by  what  rule  or  principle  her  judgments  are  to  be 
directed  ;  nor  is  there  to  be  found  a  professor  in  any  univer>ity, 
or  a  practitioner  in  any  court,  who  will  hazard  an  opinion  of 
what  is  or  is  not  law  in  France,  in  any  case  whatever.  They 
have  not  only  annulled  all  their  old  treaties,  but  they  have  re- 
nounced the  law  of  nations,  from  whence  treaties  have  their 
force.  With  a  fixed  design  they  have  outlawed  themselves, 
and,  to  their  power,  outlawed  all  other  nations. 

Instead  of  the  religion  and  the  law  by  which  they  were  in  a 
great  politic  communion  with  the  Christian  world,  they  have 
constructed  their  republic  on  three  bases,  all  fundamentally 
opposite  to  those  on  which  the  communities  of  Europe  are 
built.  Its  foundation  is  laid  in  regicide,  in  Jacobinism,9  and  in 
atheism  ;  and  it  has  joined  to  those  principles  a  body  of  sys- 
tematic manners,  which  secures  their  operation. 

If  I  am  asked  how  I  would  be  understood  in  the  use  of  these 
terms,  regicide,  Jacobinism,  atheism,  and  a  system  of  corre- 
sponding manners,  and  their  establishment,  I  will  tell  you: 

I  call  a  commonwealth  regicide,  which  lays  it  down  as  a  fixed 
law  of  nature,  and  a  fundamental  right  of  man,  that  all 


9  The  Jacobins  were  the  extreme  radical  faction  in  t'.ie  French  Revolution, 
and  took  that  name  from  their  place  of  rendezvous,  which  was  a  forsaken  mon- 
asteiy,  previously  occupied  by  an  order  or  fraternity  of  monks  called  Jacobins. 
The  revolutionary  Jacobins  were  at  first  a  political  club,  who  held  secret  meet 
ings,  to  concoct  measures  which  were  to  be  forced  upon  the  Legislature.  The 
Rcigu  of  Terror  was  their  great  triumph  in  political  architecture. 


FRANCE   AT   WAR   WITH   HUMANITY.  289 

ment,  not  being  a  democracy,  is  an  usurpation  ; l  that  all  kings, 
as  such,  arc  usurpers  ;  and  for  being  kings  may  and  ought  to  be 
put  to  death,  with  their  wives,  families,  and  adherents.  The 
commonwealth  which  acts  uniformly  upon  those  principles,  and 
which,  after  abolishing  every  festival  of  religion,  chooses  the 
most  flagrant  act  of  a  murderous  regicide  treason  for  a  feast  of 
eternal  commemoration,  and  which  forces  all  her  people  to 
observe  it,— this  I  call  rriiii-iiJr  7>//  ratab'iiKhmrnt. 

Jacobinism  is  the  revolt  of  the  enterprising  talents  of  a  coun- 
try against  its  property.  When  private  men  form  themselves 
into  associations  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  pre-existing 
laws  and  institutions  of  their  country;  when  they  secure  to 
themselves  an  army,  by  dividing  amongst  the  people  of  no  prop- 
erty the  estates  of  the  ancient  and  lawful  proprietors  ;  when  a 
State  recognizes  those  acts  ;  when  it  does  not  make  confiscations 
for  crimes,  but  makes  crimes  for  confiscations  ;  when  it  lias  its 
principal  strength,  and  all  its  resources,  in  such  a  violation  of 
property  ;  when  it  stands  chiefly  upon  such  a  violation  ;  massa- 
cring by  judgments,  or  otherwise,  those  who  make  any  struggle 
for  their  old  legal  government,  and  their  legal,  hereditary,  or 
acquired  possessions, —  I  call  this  Jncobinitan  l>u  I'titiihlidunent. 

I  call  it  uthf:ift,it  lit/  cfiffthlixltiiunt,  when  any  State,  OS  such,  shall 
not  acknowledge  the  existence  of  God  as  a  moral  governor  of 
the  world;  when  it  shall  offer  to  Him  no  religious  or  moral  wor- 
ship ;  when  it  shall  abolish  the  Christian  religion  by  a  regular 
decree; -  when  it  shall  persecute  with  a  cold,  unrelenting,  steady 
cruelty,  by  every  mode  of  confiscation,  imprisonment,  exile, 
and  death,  all  its  ministers  ;  when  it  shall  generally  shut  up  or 
pull  down  churches;  when  the  IV  w  buildings  which  remain  of 
tliis  kind  shall  be  opened  only  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  pro- 
fane apotheosis  of  monsters  whose  vices  and  crimes  have  no 
parallel  amongst  men,  and  whom  all  other  men  consider  as 
objects  of  general  detestation,  and  the  severest  animadversion 
of  law.  When,  in  the  place  of  that  religion  of  social  benevo- 
lence, and  of  individual  self-denial,  in  mockery  of  all  religion 
they  institute  impious,  blasphemous,  indecent  theatric  rites  in 
honour  of  their  vitiated,  perverted  reason,  and  erect  altars  to 
;  i-i  -onilication  of  their  own  corrupted  and  bloody  republic  ; 3 

1  Nothing  could  be  more  solemn  than  their  promulgation  of  this  principle  as 
:i  preamble  lo  the  destructive  code  of  their  famou>  articles  for  the  decomposition. 

•  i-ty,  i:ito  whatever  country  they  .-lioiild  enter.  —  .-liilhor'ii  Xotc. 
'1     In  the  Fall  of  17'J:3,  some  of  the  chiefs  publicly  ;rave  out  their  resolution  "to 
del  lirone  the,  King  of  Heaven,  as  well  as  the  monar.-hs  of  the  KarUi."    Not  long 
.  the  National  Convention  passed  a  formal  decree,  abolishing  Christianity, 
and  establishing  atheism  as.  the  State  religion.     They  also  proclaimed  death  to 
be  "an  eternal  bleep." 
3    On  this  occasion,  a  veiled  female  was  brought  into  the  Convention;  and 


290  BURKE. 

when  schools  and  seminaries  are  founded  at  the  public  expense, 
to  poison  mankind,  from  generation  to  generation,  with  tho 
horrible  maxims  of  this  impiety  ;  when,  wearied  out  with  in- 
cessant martyrdom  and  the  cries  of  a  people  hungering  and 
thirsting  for  religion,  they  permit  it  only  as  a  tolerated  evil, — 
I  call  this  atheism  bt/  establishment. 

When  to  these  establishments  of  regicide,  of  Jacobinism,  and 
of  atheism,  you  add  the  correspondent  system  of  manner*,  no 
doubt  can  be  left  on  the  mind  of  a  thinking  man  concerning 
their  determined  hostility  to  the  human  race.  Manners  are  of 
more  importance  than  laws.  Upon"  them,  in  a  great  measure, 
the  laws  depend.  The  law  touches  us  but  here  and  there,  and 
now  and  then.  Manners  are  what  vex  or  soothe,  corrupt  or 
purify,  exalt  or  debase,  barbarize  or  refine  us,  by  a  constant, 
steady,  uniform,  insensible  operation,  like  that  of  the  air  we 
breathe  in.  They  give  their  whole  form  and  colour  to  our  lives. 
According  to  their  quality,  they  aid  morals,  they  supply  them, 
or  they  totally  destroy  them.  Of  this  the  new  French  legisla- 
tors were  aware:  therefore,  with  the  same  method,  and  under 
the  same  authority,  they  settled  a  system  of  manners  the  most 
licentious,  prostitute,  and  abandoned,  that  ever  has  been  known, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  most  coarse,  rude,  savage,  and  fero- 
cious. Nothing  in  the  Revolution,  no,  not  to  a  phrase  or  a 
gesture,  not  to  the  fashion  of  a  hat  or  a  shoe,  was  left  to  acci- 
dent. All  has  been  the  result  of  design  ;  all  has  been  matter  of 
institution.  No  mechanical  means  could  be  devised,  in  favour 
of  this  incredible  system  of  wickedness  and  vice,  that  has  not 
been  employed.  The  noblest  passions,  the  love  of  glory,  the 
love  of  country,  have  been  debauched  into  means  of  its  preser- 
vation and  its  propagation.  All  sorts  of  shows  and  exhibitions, 
calculated  to  inflame  and  vitiate  the  imagination,  and  pervert 
the  moral  sense,  have  been  contrived.  They  have  sometimes 
brought  forth  five  or  six  hundred  drunken  women,  calling  at  the 
bar  of  the  Assembly  for  the  blood  of  their  own  children,  as  be- 
ing royalists  or  constitutionalists.  Sometimes  they  have  got  a 
body  of  wretches,  calling  themselves  fathers,  to  demand  the 
murder  of  their  sons,  boasting  that  Rome  had  but  one  Brutus, 
but  that  they  could  show  five  hundred.  There  were  instances 

one  of  the  chiefs,  taking  her  by  the  hand,  said,  "Mortals,  cease  to  tremble  he- 
fore  the  powerless  thunders  of  a  tiod  whom  your  fear*  have  created.  Hem-e. 
forth  acknowledge  no  divinity  but  Reason.  I  offer  you  its  noblest  and  purest 
imajre:  if  you  must  have  idols,  sacrifice  only  to  such  as  this."  Then,  letting  fall 
the  veil,  he  added,  "Fall  before  the  august  Senate  of  Freedom.  Veil  of  Hear-on! " 
At  the  same  time  appeared  a  celebrated  beauty  of  the  opera,  known  in  more 
than  one  character  to  most  of  the  members.  This  "goddess  of  rea.-on"  was 
then  taken  to  the  cathedral  of  Xotre  Dame,  placed  upon  the  high  altar,  ami  re- 
ceived the  adoration  of  all  present. 


FRANCE   AT   WAR   WITH   HUMANITY.  291 

in  which  they  inverted  and  retaliated  the  impiety,  and  pro- 
duced sons  who  called  for  the  execution  of  their  parents.  The 
foundation  of  their  republic  is  laid  in  moral  paradoxes.  Their 
patriotism  is  always,  prodigy.  All  those  instances  to  be  found 
in  history,  whether  real  or  fabulous,  of  a  doubtful  public  spirit 
at  which  morality  is  perplexed,  reason  is  staggered,  and  from 
which  affrighted  nature  recoils,  are  their  chosen,  and  almost 
sole,  examples  for  the  instruction  of  their  youth. 

The  whole  drift  of  their  institution  is  contrary  to  that  of  the 
wise  legislators  of  all  countries,  who  aimed  at  improving  in- 
stincts into  morals,  and  at  grafting  the  virtues  on  the  stock  of 
the  natural  affections.  They,  on  the  contrary,  have  omitted  no 
pain*  to  eradicate  every  benevolent  and  noble  propensity  in 
the  minds  of  men.  In  their  culture  it  is  a  rule  always  to  graft 
virtues  on  vices.  They  think  every  thing  unworthy  of  the 
name  of  public  virtue,  unless  it  indicates  violence  on  the  pri- 
vate. All  their  new  institutions  (and  with  them  every  thing  is 
new.)  strike  at  the  root  of  our  social  nature.  Other  legislators, 
knowing  that  marriage  is  the  origin  of  all  relations,  and  conse- 
quently the  first  element  of  all  duties,  have  endeavoured,  by 
every  art,  to  make  it  sacred.  The  Christian  religion,  confining 
it  to  the  pairs,  and  rendering  that  relation  indissoluble,  has  by 
these  two  things  done  more  towards  the  peace,  happiness,  set- 
tlement, and  civilixation  of  the  world,  than  by  any  other  part 
in  this  whole  scheme  of  Divine  Wisdom.  The  direct  contrary 
course  has  been  taken  in  the  synagogue  of  Antichrist,— I  mean 
in  that  forge  and  manufactory  of  all  evil,  the  sect  which  pre- 
dominated in  the  Constituent  Assembly  of  1789.  Those  mon- 
sters employed  the  same  or  greater  industry  to  desecrate  and 
degrade  that  state,  which  other  legislators  have  used  to  render 
it  holy  and  honourable.  Ily  a  strange,  uncalled-for  declara- 
tion, they  pronounced  that  marriage  was  no  better  than  a 
common  civil  contract.4  It  was  one  of  their  ordinary  tricks  to 
put  their  sentiments  into  the  mouths  of  certain  personated 
characters,  which  they  theatrically  exhibited  at  the  bar  of 
what  ought  to  be  a  serious  Assembly.  One  of  these  was 
brought  out  in  the  figure  of  a  prostitute,  whom  they  called  by 
the  :ilT»'ct«-d  name  of  "a  mother  without  being  a  wife."  This 
creature  they  made  to  call  for  a  repeal  of  the  incapacities  which 
in  civilized  States  are  put  upon  basiards.  The  prostitutes  of 
the  Assembly  gave  to  this  their  puppet  the  sanction  of  their 

4  All  this  rcv>rcscntation,  shocking  as  it  is,  spicks  the  simple  language  of 
actual  history.  The  Convention  passed  a  decree,  declaring  marriage  a  civil 
contract  merely,  binding  only  during  the  pleasure  of  the  contracting  parties. 
And  a  celebrated  comic  actress  expressed  the  public  feeling  when  the  called 
marriage  "  the  Sacrament  of  Adultery." 


292  BUHKE. 

greater  impudence.  In  consequence  of  the  principles  laid 
down,  and  the  manners  authorized,  bastards  were  not  lone: 
after  put  on  the  footing  of  the  issue  of  lawful  unions.  Proceed- 
ing in  the  spirit  of  the  first  authors  of  their  Constitution,  suc- 
ceeding assemblies  went  the  full  length  of  the  principle,  and 
gave  a  license  to  divorce  at  the  mere  pleasure  of  either  party, 
and  at  a  month's  notice.  With  them  the  matrimonial  connec- 
tion is  brought  into  so  degraded  a  state  of  concubinage,  that  1 
believe  none  of  the  wretches  in  London  who  keep  warehouse0 
of  infamy  would  give  out  one  of  their  victims  to  private  custody 
on  so  short  and  insolent  a  tenure.  There  was  indeed  a  kind  of 
profligate  equity  in  giving  to  women  the  same  licentious  power. 
The  reason  they  assigned  was  as  infamous  as  the  act ;  declaring 
that  women  had  been  too  long  under  the  tyranny  of  parents 
and  of  husbands.  It  is  not  necessary  to  observe  upon  the  hor- 
rible consequences  of  taking  one  half  of  the  species  wholly  out 
of  the  guardianship  and  protection  of  the  other. 

The  practice  of  divorce,  though  in  some  countries  permitted, 
has  been  discouraged  in  all.  In  the  East,  polygamy  and  divorce 
are  in  discredit;  and  the  manners  correct  the  laws.  In  Home, 
whilst  Rome  was  in  its  integrity,  the  few  causes  allowed  for 
divorce  amounted  in  effect  to  a  prohibition.  They  were  only 
three.  The  arbitrary  was  totally  excluded,  and  accordingly 
some  hundreds  of  years  passed  without  a  single  example  of 
that  kind.  When  manners  were  corrupted,  the  laws  were  re- 
laxed ;  as  the  latter  always  follow  the  former,  when  they  are 
not  able  to  regulate  them,  or  to  vanquish  them.  Of  this  cir- 
cumstance the  legislators  of  vice  and  crime  were  pleased  to 
take  notice,  as  an  inducement  to  adopt  their  regulation  ;  hold- 
ing out  a  hope  that  the  permission  would  as  rarely  be  made 
use  of.  They  knew  the  contrary  to  be  true ;  and  they  had 
taken  good  care  that  the  laws  should  be  well  seconded  by  the 
manners.  Their  law  of  divorce,  like  all  their  laws,  had  not  for 
its  object  the  relief  of  domestic  uneasiness,  but  the  total  cor- 
ruption of  all  morals,  the  total  disconnection  of  social  life. 

It  is  a  matter  of  curiosity  to  observe  the  operation  of  this  en- 
couragement to  disorder.  I  have  before  me  the  Paris  paper. 
correspondent  to  the  usual  register  of  births,  marriages,  and 
deaths.  Divorce,  happily,  is  no  regular  head  of  registry 
amongst  civilized  nations.  With  the  Jacobins  it  is  remark-- 
able that  divorce  is  not  only  a  regular  head,  but  it  has  the  post 
of  honour.  It  occupies  the  lirst  place  in  the  list.  In  the  three 
first  months  of  the  year  1703,  the  number  of  divorces  in  that 
city  amounted  to  502.  The  marriages  were  1783  ;  so  that  the 
proportion  of  divorces  to  marriages  was  not  much  less  than  one 
to  three,— a  thing  unexampled,  I  believe,  among  mankind.  I 


FRANCE   AT   WAR   WITH   HUMANITY.  293 

caused  an  inquiry  to  be  made  at  Doctors'  Commons  concerning 
the  number  of  divorces;  and  found  that  all  the  divorces  (which, 
except  by  special  Act  of  Parliament,  are  separations,  and  not 
proper  divorces)  did  not  amount  in  all  those  courts,  and  in  a 
hundred  years,  to  much  more  than  one-fifth  of  those  that 
passed,  in  the  single  city  of  Paris,  in  three  months.  I  followed 
up  the  inquiry  relative  to  that  city  through  several  of  the  sub- 
sequent months  until  I  was  tired,  and  found  the  proportions 
still  the  same.  Since  then  I  have  heard  that  they  have  declared 
for  11  revisal  of  these  laws  ;  but  I  know  of  nothing  done.  It  ap- 
pears as  if  the  contract  that  renovates  the  world  was  under  no 
law  at  all.  From  this  we  may  take  our  estimate  of  the  havoc 
that  has  been  made  through  all  the  relations  of  life.  With  the 
Jacobins  of  France,  vague  intercourse  is  without  reproach  ; 
marriage  is  reduced  to  the  vilest  concubinage;  children  are 
encouraged  to  cut  the  throats  of  their  parents;  mothers  are 
taught  that  tenderness  is  no  part  of  their  character,  and,  to 
demonstrate  their  attachment  to  their  party,  that  they  ought  to 
make  no  scruple  to  i-ike  with  their  bloody  hands  in  the  bowels 
of  those  who  came  from  their  own. 

To  all  this  let  us  join  the  practice  of  cdnuilttdium,  with  which, 
in  the  proper  terms,  and  with  the  greatest  truth,  their  several 
factions  accuse  each  other.  I»y  cannibalism,  I  mean  their  de- 
vouring, as  a  nutriment  of  their  ferocity,  some  part  of  the  bod- 
ies of  those  they  have  murdered  ;  their  drinking  the  blood  of 
their  victims,  and  forcing  the  victims  themselves  to  drink  the 
blood  of  their  kindred  slaughtered  before  their  faces.  .1 5 y  can- 
nibalism, I  mean  also  to  signify  all  their  nameless,  unmanly, 
and  abominable  insults  on  the  bodies  of  those  they  slaughter. 

As  to  those  whom  they  suffer  to  die  a  natural  death,  they  do 
not  permit  them  to  enjoy  the  la^t  consolations  of  mankind,  or 
those  rights  ol'  sepulture  which  indicate  hope,  and  which  mere 
nature  has  taught  to  mankind,  in  all  countries,  to  soothe  the 
alllictions  and  to  cover  the  infirmity  of  mortal  condition. 
They  disgrace  men  in  the  entry  into  life,  they  vitiate  and  en- 
slave them  through  the  whole  course  of  it,  and  they  deprive 
them  of  all  comfort  at  the  conclusion  of  their  dishonoured  and 
depraved  existence.  Endeavouring  to  persuade  the  people  that 
they  are  no  better  than  bea>ts,  the  whole  body  of  their  institu- 
tion tends  to  make  them  beasts  of  prey,  furious  and  savage. 
For  this  purpose  the  active  part  of  them  is  disciplined  into  a 
ferocity  which  has  no  parallel.  To  this  ferocity  then;  is  joined 
not  one  of  the  rude,  unfashioned  virtues,  which  accompany  the 
,  where  the  whole  arc  left  to  grow  up  together  in  the  rank- 
of  uncultivated  nature.  But  nothing  is  left  to  nature  in 
their  systems. 


294  BURKE. 

The  same  discipline  which  hardens  their  hearts  relaxes  their 
morals.  Whilst  courts  of  justice  were  thrust  out  by  revolution- 
ary tribunals,  and  silent  churches  were  only  the  funeral  monu- 
ments of  departed  religion,  there  were  no  fewer  than  nineteen 
or  twenty  theatres,  great  and  .small,  most  of  them  kept  open  at 
the  public  expense,  and  all  of  them  crowded  every  night. 
Among  the  gaunt,  haggard  forms  of  famine  and  nakedness, 
amidst  the  yells  of  murder,  the  tears  of  affliction,  and  the  cries 
of  despair,  the  song,  the  dance,  the  mimic  scene,  the  buffoon 
laughter,  went  on  as  regularly  as  in  the  gay  hour  of  festive 
peace.  I  have  it  from  good  authority,  that,  under  the  scaffold 
of  judicial  murder,  and  the  gaping  planks  that  poured  down 
blood  on  the  spectators,  the  spare  was  hired  out  for  a  show  of 
dancing  dogs.  I  think,  without  concert,  we  have  made  the  very 
same  remark  on  reading  some  of  their  pieces,  which,  being  writ- 
ten for  other  purposes,  let  us  into  a  view  of  their  social  life.  It 
struck  us  that  the  habits  of  Paris  had  no  resemblance  to  the 
finished  virtues,  or  to  the  polished  vice,  and  elegant,  though 
not  blameless  luxury,  of  the  capital  of  a  great  empire.  Their 
society  was  more  like  that  of  a  den  of  outlaws  upon  a  doubtful 
frontier  ;  of  a  lewd  tyvern  for  the  revels  and  debauches  of  ban- 
ditti, assassins,  bravoes,  smugglers,  and  their  more  desperate 
paramours,  mixed  with  bombastic  players,  the  refuse  and  re- 
jected otl'al  of  strolling  theatres,  pufling  out  ill-sorted  versos 
about  virtue,  mixed  with  the  licentious  and  blasphemous  songs 
proper  to  the  brutal  and  hardened  course  of  life  belonging  to 
that  sort  of  wretches.  This  system  of  manners  in  itself  is  at 
war  with  all  orderly  and  moral  society,  and  is  in  its  neighbour- 
hood unsafe.  If  great  bodies  of  that  kind  were  anywhere  es- 
tablished in  a  bordering  territory,  we  should  have  a  right  to 
demand  of  their  governments  the  suppression  of  such  a  nui- 
sance. What  are  we  to  do  if  the  government  and  the  whole 
community  is  of  the  same  description?  Yet  that  government 
has  thought  proper  to  invite  ours  to  lay  by  its  unjust  hatred,  and 
to  listen  to  the  voice  of  humanity  as  taught  by  their  example. 

The  operation  of  dangerous  and  delusive  first  principles 
obliges  us  to  have  recourse  to  the  true  ones.  Jn  the  intercourse 
between  nations  we  are  apt  to  rely  too  much  on  the  instrumen- 
tal part.  We  lay  too  much  weight  upon  the  formality  of  trea- 
ties and  compacts.  We  do  not  act  much  more  wisely  when  we 
trust  to  the  interests  of  men  as  guarantees  of  their  engage- 
ments. The  interests  frequently  tear  to  pieces  the  engagements, 
and  the  passions  trample  upon  both.  Entirely  to  trust  to 
either,  is  to  disregard  our  own  safety,  or  not  to  know  mankind. 
Men  are  not  tied  to  one  ailbther  by  papers  and  seals.  They  are 
led  to  associate  by  resemblances,  by  conformities,  by  sympa- 


FRANCE  AT  WAR  WITH   HUMANITY.  295 

tliies.  It  is  with  nations  as  with  individuals.  Nothing  is  so 
strong  a  tie  of  amity  between  nation  and  nation  as  correspond- 
ence in  laws,  customs,  manners,  and  habits  of  life.  They  have 
more  than  the  force  of  treaties  in  themselves.  They  are  obli- 
gations written  in  the  heart.  They  approximate  men  to  men, 
without  their  knowledge,  and  sometimes  against  their  inten- 
tions. The  secret,  unseen,  but  irrefragable  bond  of  habitual 
intercourse  holds  them  together,  even  when  their  perverse  and 
litigious  nature  sets  them  to  equivocate,  scuffle,  and  fight  about 
the  terms  of  their  written  obligations. 

As  to  war,  if  it  be  the  means  of  wrong  and  violence,  it  is  the 
sole  means  of  justice  amongst  nations.  Nothing  can  banish  it 
from  the  world.  They  who  say  otherwise,  intending  to  impose 
upon  us,  do  not  impose  upon  themselves.  But  it  is  one  of  the 
greatest  objects  of  human  wisdom  to  mitigate  those  evils  which 
we  are  unable  to  remove.  The  conformity  and  analogy  of  which 
1  speak,  incapable,  like  every  thing  else,  of  preserving  perfect 
trust  and  tranquillity  among  men,  lias  a  strong  tendency  to  fa- 
cilitate accommodation,  and  to  produce  a  generous  oblivion  of 
the  rancour  of  their  quarrels.  With  this  similitude,  peace  is 
more  of  peace,  and  war  is  less  of  war.  I  will  go  further.  There 
have  been  periods  of  time  in  which  communities,  apparently  in 
peace  with  each  other,  have  been  more  perfectly  separated 
than,  in  latter  times,  many  nations  in  Europe  have  been  in  the 
c'.ur^e  of  long  and  bloody  wars.  The  cause  must  be  sought  in 
tin-  similitude  throughout  Europe  of  religion,  laws,  and  man- 
ners. At  bottom,  these  are  all  the  same.  The  writers  on  pub- 
lic law  have  often  called  this  aygrcgate  of  nations  a  common- 
wealth. They  had  reason.  It  is  virtually  one  great  State  having 
the  same  basis  of  general  law,  with  some  diversity  of  provincial 

is  and  local  establishments.  The  nations  of  Europe  have 
had  the  very  same  Christian  religion,  agreeing  in  the  funda- 
i-ntal  parts,  varying  a  little  in  the  ceremonies  and  in  the  sub- 
inate  doctrines.  The  whole  of  the  polity  and  economy  of 
every  country  in  Europe  has  been  derived  from  the  samo 
sources.  It  was  drawn  from  the  old  Germanic  or  Gothic  eustu- 
mary,  from  the  feudal  institutions,  which  must  be  considered  as 
an  emanation  from  that  custninary  ;  and  the  whole  has  been 
improved  and  digested  into  system  and  discipline  by  the  Unman 
law.  From  hence;  arose  the  several  orders,  with  or  without  a 
monarch,  (which  are  called  states,)  in  every  European  country  ; 

r«>ng  traces  of  which,  where  monarchy  predominated, 
vvcro  never  wholly  extinguished  or  merged  into  despotism.  In 
the  lew  places  where  monarchy  was  cast  off,  the  spirit  of  Euro. 
p'-an  monarchy  was  still  left.  Those  countries  still  continued 
countries  of  states ;  that  is,  of  classes,  orders,  and  distinctions 


Hie] 


296  BURKE. 

such  as  had  before  subsisted,  or  nearly  so.  Indeed,  the  force 
and  form  of  the  institution  called  states  continued  in  greater 
perfection  in  those  republican  communities  than  under  mon- 
archies. From  all  those  sources  arose  a  system  of  manners  and 
of  education  which  was  nearly  similar  in  all  this  quarter  of  the 
globe ;  and  which  softened,  blended,  and  harmonized  the  col- 
ours of  the  whole.  There  was  little  difference  in  the  form  of 
the  universities  for  the  education  of  their  youth,  whether  with 
regard  to  faculties,  to  sciences,  or  to  the  more  liberal  and  ele- 
gant kinds  of  erudition.  From  this  resemblance  in  the  modes 
of  intercourse,  and  in  the  whole  form  and  fashion  of  life,  no 
citizen  of  Europe  could  be  altogether  an  exile  in  any  part  of  it. 
There  was  nothing  more  than  a  pleasing  variety  to  recreate  and 
instruct  the  mind,  to  enrich  the  imagination,  and  to  meliorate 
the  heart.  When  a  man  travelled  or  resided  for  health,  pleas- 
ure, business,  or  necessity,  from  his  own  country,  he  never  felt 
himself  quite  abroad. 

The  whole  body  of  this  new  scheme  of  manners,  in  support  of 
the  new  scheme  of  politics,  I  consider  as  a  strong  and  decisive 
proof  of  determined  ambition  and  systematic  hostility.  I  defy 
the  most  refining  ingenuity  to  invent  any  other  cause  for  the 
total  departure  of  the  Jacobin  republic  from  every  one  of  the 
ideas  and  usages,  religious,  legal,  moral,  or  social,  of  this  civil- 
ized world,  and  for  her  tearing  herself  from  its  communion  with 
such  studied  violence,  but  from  a  formed  resolution  of  keeping 
no  terms  with  that  world.  It  has  not  been,  as  has  been  falsely 
and  insidiously  represented,  that  these  miscreants  had  only 
broke  with  their  old  government.  They  made  a  schism  with 
the  whole  universe,  and  that  schism  extended  to  almost  every 
thing  great  and  small.  For  one,  I  wish,  since  it  is  gone  thus  far, 
that  the  breach  had  been  so  complete  as  to  make  all  intercourse 
impracticable;  but  partly  by  accident,  partly  by  design,  partly 
from  the  resistance  of  the  matter,  enough  is  left  to  preserve  in- 
tercourse, whilst  amity  is  destroyed  or  corrupted  in  its  principle. 


FANATICAL  ATHEISM. 

IN  THE  Revolution  of  France  two  sorts  of  men  were  princi- 
pally concerned  in  giving  a  character  and  determination  to  its 
pursuits,— the  philosophers  and  the  politicians.  They  took  dif- 
ferent ways,  but  they  met  in  the  same  end.  The  philosophers 
had  one  predominant  object,  which  they  pursued  with  a  fanati- 
cal fury,  that  is,  the  utter  extirpation  of  religion.  To  that 


FANATICAL   ATHEISM.  297 

every  question  of  empire  was  subordinate.  They  had  rather 
domineer  in  a  parish  of  atheists  than  rule  over  a  Christian 
world.  Their  temporal  ambition  was  wholly  subservient  to 
their  proselytizing  spirit,  in  which  they  were  not  exceeded  by 
Mahomet  himself. 

They  who  have  made  but  superficial  studies  in  the  natural 
history  of  the  human  mind  have  been  taught  to  look  on  re- 
ligious opinions  as  the  only  cause  of  enthusiastic  zeal  and  secta- 
rian propagation.  But  there  is  no  doctrine  whatever,  on  which 
men  can  warm,  that  is  not  capable  of  the  very  same  effect. 
The  social  nature  of  man  impels  him  to  propagate  his  princi- 
ples, as  much  as  physical  impulses  urge  him  to  propagate  his 
kind.  The  passions  give  zeal  and  vehemence.  The  under- 
standing bestows  design  and  system.  The  whole  man  moves 
under  the  discipline  of  his  opinions.  "Religion  is  among  the 
most  powerful  causes  of  enthusiasm.  When  any  thing  con- 
cerning it  becomes  an  object  of  much  meditation,  it  cannot  be 
indifferent  to  the  mind.  They  who  do  not  love  religion,  hate  it. 
The  rebels  lo'iod  perfectly  abhor  the  Author  of  their  being. 
They  hate  Him  "  with  nil  their  heart,  with  all  their  mind,  with 
all  their  soul,  and  with  all  their  strength."  lie  never  presents 
Himself  to  their  thoughts,  but  to  menace  and  alarm  them. 
They  cannot  strike  the  Sun  out  of  heaven,  but.  they  are  able  to 
raise  a  smouldering  smoke  that  obscures  him  from  their  own 
Xot.  being  able  to  revenge  themselves  on  (Jod,  they  have 
a  delight  in  vicariously  defacing,  degrading,  torturing,  and 
tearing  in  pieces,  His  image  in  man.  Let  no  one  judge  of  them 
by  what  he  has  conceived  of  them  when  they  were  not  incor- 
porated and  had  no  lead.  They  were  then  only  passengers  in 
a  common  vehicle.  They  were  then  carried  along  with  the 
general  motion  of  religion  in  the  community,  and,  without 
being  aware  of  it,  partook  of  its  influence.  In  that  situation, 
at  wor>t,  their  nature  was  left  free  to  counteract  their  princi- 
They  despaired  of  giving  any  very  general  currency  to 
their  opinions.  They  considered  them  as  a  reserved  privilege 
for  the  chosen  few.  But  when  the  possibility  of  dominion, 
lead,  and  propagation  presented  itself,  and  that  the  ambition, 
which  before  had  so  often  made  them  hypocrites,  might  rather 
gain  than  lose  by  a  daring  avowal  of  their  sentiments,  then  the. 
nature  of  this  infernal  spirit,  which  has  "evil  for  its  good," 
peared  in  its  full  perfection.  Nothing  indeed  but  the  pos- 
i  of  some  power  can  with  any  certainty  discover  what  at 
the  bottom  is  the  true  character  of  any  man.  Without  reading 
the  speeches  of  Yergniaux,  Fran^ais  of  Xautz,  Isnard,  and 
some  others  of  that  sort,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  conceive  the 
passion,  rancour,  and  malice  of  their  tongues  and  hearts.  They 


298  BURKE. 

worked  themselves  up  to  a  perfect  frenzy  against  religion  and 
all  its  professors.  They  tore  the  reputation  of  the  clergy  to 
pieces  by  their  infuriated  declamations  and  invectives,  before 
they  lacerated  their  bodies  by  their  massacres.  This  fanatical 
atheism  left  out,  we  omit  the  principal  feature  in  the  French 
Revolution,  and  a  principal  consideration  with  regard  to  the 
effects  to  be  expected  from  a  peace  with  it. 

The  other  sort  of  men  were  the  politicians.  To  them,  who 
had  little  or  not  at  all  reflected  on  the  subject,  religion  was  in 
itself  no  object  of  love  or  hatred.  They  disbelieved  it,  and 
that  was  all.  Xoutral  with  regard  to  that  object,  they  took  the 
side  which  in  the  present  state  of  things  might  best  answer 
their  purposes.  They  soon  found  that  they  could  not  do  with- 
out the  philosophers ;  and  the  philosophers  soon  made  them 
sensible  that  the  destruction  of  religion  was  to  supply  them 
with  means  of  conquest,  first  at  home,  and  then  abroad.  The 
philosophers  were  the  active  internal  agitators,  and  supplied 
the  spirit  and  principles:  the  second  gave  the  practical  direction. 
Sometimes  the  one  predominated  in  the  composition,  sometimes 
the  other.  The  only  difference  between  them  was  in  the  neces- 
sity of  concealing  the  general  design  for  a  time,  and  in  their 
dealing  with  foreign  nations  ;  the  fanatics  going  straight  for- 
ward and  openly,  the  politicians  by  the  surer  mode  of  zigzag. 
In  the  course  of  events  this,  among  other  causes,  produced 
fierce  and  bloody  contentions  between  them.  But  at  the  bot- 
tom they  thoroughly  agreed  in  all  the  objects  of  ambition  and 
irreligion,  and  substantially  in  all  the  means  of  promoting 
these  ends.—  Letters  on  a  Reyicide  Peace. 


HOW  TO  DEAL  WITH  JACOBIN  FRANCE. 

MUCH  controversy  there  has  been  in  Parliament,  and  not  a 
little  amongst  us  out  of  doors,  about  the  instrumental  means  of 
this  nation  towards  the  maintenance  of  her  dignity  and  the 
assertion  of  her  rights.  On  the  most  elaborate  and  correct 
detail  of  facts,  the  result  seems  to  be,  that  at  no  time  has  the 
wealth  and  power  of  Great  Britain  been  so  considerable  as  it  is 
at  this  very  perilous  moment.  We  have  a  vast  interest  to  pre- 
serve, and  we  possess  great  means  of  preserving  it:  but  it  is  to 
bo  remembered  that  the  artificer  may  be  encumbered  by  his 
tools,  and  that  resources  may  be  among  impediments.  If  wealth 
is  the  obedient  and  laborious  slave  of  virtue  and  of  public  hon- 
our, then  wealth  is  in  its  place,  and  has  its  use :  but  if  this  order 


DESOLATION   OP  THE   CARXATIC.  299 

is  changed,  and  honour  is  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  conservation  of 
riches,  riches,  which  have  neither  eyes  nor  hands,  nor  anything 
truly  vital  in  them,  cannot  long  survive  the  being  of  their  vivi- 
fying powers,  their  legitimate  masters,  and  their  potent  pro- 
tectors. If  we  command  our  wealth,  we  shall  be  rich  and  free: 
if  our  wealth  commands  us,  we  are  poor  indeed.  YTc  are  bought 
by  the  enemy  with  the  treasure  from  our  own  coffers.  Too 
great  a  sense  of  the  value  of  a  subordinate  interest  may  be  the 
very  source  of  its  danger,  as  well  as  the  certain  ruin  of  interests 
of  a  superior  order.  Often  has  a  man  lost  his  all  because  he 
would  not  submit  to  hazard  all  in  defending  it.  A  display  of 
our  wealth  before  robbers  is  not  the  way  to  restrain  their  bold- 
ness, or  to  lessen  their  rapacity.  This  display  is  made,  I  know, 
to  persuade  the  people  of  England  that  thereby  we  shall  awe 
the  enemy,  and  improve  the  terms  of  our  capitulation:  it  is 
made,  not  that  we  should  fight  with  more  animation,  but  that 
we  should  supplicate  with  better  hopes.  "\Ve  arc  mistaken.  We 
have  an  enemy  to  deal  with  who  never  regarded  our  contest  as 
a  measuring  and  weighing  of  purses.  lie  is  the  Gaul  that  puts 
his  sword  into  the  scale.5  lie  is  more  tempted  with  our  wealth 
as  booty  than  terrified  with  it  as  power.  But  let  us  be  rich  or 
poor,  let  us  be  either  in  what  proportion  we  may,  nature  is  false 
or  tliis  is  true,  that  where  the  essential  public  force  (of  which 
money  is  but  a  part)  is  in  any  degree  upon  a  par  in  a,  conflict 
between  nations,  that  State  which  is  resolved  to  hazard  its  ex- 
istence rather  than  to  abandon  its  object  must  have  an  infinite 
advantage  over  that  which  is  resolved  to  yield  rather  than  to 
carry  its  resistance  beyond  a  certain  point.  Humanly  speaking, 
that  people  which  bounds  its  efforts  only  with  its  being  must 
give  the  law  to  that  nation  which  will  not  push  its  opposition 
beyond  its  convenience. — Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace. 


DESOLATION  OF  THE  CARXATIC. 

Tin;  great  fortunes  made  in  India,  in  the  beginnings  of  con- 
quest, naturally  excited  an  emulation  in  all  the  parts,  and 

:.  Alluding  to  P.rennus,  the;  lender  of  the  Gauls,  who  in  the  year  B.  C.  390 
overthrew  Hi"  Unman-  terribly  in  the  battle  at  the  Allia,  ami  captured  their 
city,  ;ill  but  the  Capitol,  whir.h  was  a  strong  fortress.  lie  then  laid  siege-  to  tiie 
<  apitol,  mid,  alter  a  .-ie^e  of  siv  months,  agreed  to  withdraw  on  the  payment 
or  a  thousand  pounds  of  gold  by  the  Romans.  It  is  said  that,  while  they  were 
weighing  out  the  gold,  he  cast  his  sword  iuto  the  other  scale,  and  exacted  the 
weight  of  that  in  addition. 


300  BURKE. 

through  the  whole  succession,  of  the  Company's  sen-ice.  But 
in  the  Company  it  gave  rise  to  other  sentiments.  They  did  not 
find  the  new  channels  of  acquisition  flow  with  equal  riches  to 
them.  On  the  contrary,  the  high  flood-tide  of  private  emolu- 
ment was  generally  in  the  lowest  ebb  of  their  affairs.  They 
began  also  to  fear  that  the  fortune  of  war  might  take  away  what 
the  fortune  of  war  had  given.  Wars  were  accordingly  discour- 
aged by  repeated  injunctions  and  menaces  ;  and,  that  the  ser- 
vants might  not  be  bribed  into  them  by  the  native  princes,  they 
were  strictly  forbidden  to  take  any  money  whatsoever  from 
their  hands.  But  vehement  passion  is  ingenious  in  resources. 
The  Company's  servants  were  not  only  stimulated,  but  better 
instructed,  by  the  prohibition.  They  soon  fell  upon  a  contriv- 
ance which  answered  their  purposes  far  better  than  the  meth- 
ods which  were  forbidden  ;  though  in  this  also  they  violated  an 
ancient,  but  they  thought  an  abrogated,  order.  They  r<-\  er>ed 
their  proceedings.  Instead  of  receiving  presents,  they  made 
loans.  Instead  of  carrying  on  wars  in  their  own  name,  thoy 
contrived  an  authority,  at  once  irresistible  and  irresponsible,  in 
whose  name  they  might  ravage  at  pleasure;  and,  being  thus 
freed  from  all  restraint,  they  indulged  themselves  in  the  most 
extravagant  speculations  of  plunder.  The  cabal  of  creditors 
who  have  boon  the  object  of  the  late  bountiful  grant  from  his 
Majesty's  Ministers,  in  order  to  possess  themselves,  under  the 
name  of  creditors  and  assignee's,  of  every  country  in  India  as 
fast  as  it  should  be  conquered,  inspired  into  the  mind  of  the 
2\'abob  of  Arcot  (then  a  dependent  on  the  Company  of  the  hum- 
blest order)  a  scheme  of  the  most  wild  and  desperate  ambition 
that  I  believe  ever  was  admitted  into  the  thoughts  of  a  man  so 
situated.  First,  they  persuaded  him  to  consider  himself  as  a 
principal  member  in  the  political  system  of  Europe.  In  the 
next  place,  they  held  out  to  him,  and  he  readily  imbibed,  the 
idea  of  the  general  empire  of  Ilindostan.  As  a  preliminary  to 
this  undertaking,  they  prevailed  on  him  to  propose-  a  tripartite 
division  of  that  vast  country:  one  part  to  the  Company;  another 
to  the  Mahrattas  ;  and  the  third  to  himself.  To  himself  he  re- 
served all\£lie  southern  part  of  the  great  peninsula,  compre- 
hended unden the  general  name  of  the  Decan. 

On  this  scliame  of  their  servants,  the  Company  was  to  appear 
in  the  Carnaw  in  no  other  light  than  as  a  contractor  for  the 
provision  of  armies,  and  the  hire  of  mercenaries  for  his  use  and 
under  his  direction.  This  disposition  was  to  be  secured  by  the 
Nabob's  putting  himself  under,  the  guarantee  of  France,  and, 
by  the  means  of  that  rival  nation,  preventing  the  English  for 
ever  from  assuming  an  equality,  much  less  a  superiority,  in  the 
Carnatic.  In  pursuance  of  this  treasonable  project^  (treason- 


DESOLATION   OF  THE   CARXATIC.  301 

able  on  the  part  of  the  English,)  they  extinguished  the  Com- 
pany as  a  sovereign  power  in  that  part  of  India  ;  they  withdrew 
the  Company's  garrisons  out  of  all  the  forts  and  strong-holds  of 
the  Carnatic ;  they  declined  to  receive  the  ambassadors  from 
foreign  Courts,  and  remitted  them  to  the  Nabob  of  Arcot ;  they 
fell  upon,  and  totally  destroyed,  the  oldest  ally  of  the  Company, 
the  King  of  Tanjore,  and  plundered  the  country  to  the  amount 
of  near  five  millions  sterling  ;  one  after  another,  in  the  Nabob's 
name,  but  with  English  force,  they  brought  into  a  miserable 
servitude  all  the  princes  and  great  independent  nobility  of  a 
vast  country.  In  proportion  to  these  treasons  and  violences, 
which  mined  the  people,  the  fund  of  the  Nabob's  debt  grew 
and  nourished. 

Among  the  victims  to  this  magnificent  plan  of  universal 
plunder,  worthy  of  tin-  heroic  avarice  of  the  projectors,  you  have 
all  heard  (and  lie  has  made  himself  to  be  well  femembered)  of 
an  Indian  chief  called  Ilyder  All  Khan.  This  man  possessed 
the  western,  as  the  Company  under  the  name  of  the  Nabob  of 
Arcot  does  the  eastern,  division  of  the  Carnatic.  It  was  among 
the  leading  measures  in  the  design  of  this  cabal,  (according  to 
their  own  emphatic  language,)  to  t.'-iir/>«le  this  Ilyder  All. 
They  declared  Ihe  Nabob  of  Arcot  to  be  his  sovereign,  and  him- 
self to  U>  a  rebel,  and  publicly  invested  their  instrument  with 
the  sovereignty  of  the  kingdom  of  Mysore.  But  their  victim 
was  not  of  the  passive  kind.  They  were  soon  obliged  to  conclude 
a  treaty  of  peace  and  close,  alliance  with  this  rebel,  atthe  gates  of 
Madras.  Both  before  and  since  that  treaty,  every  principle  of 
policy  pointed  out  this  power  as  a  natural  alliance  ;  and  on  his 
part  it  was  courted  by  every  sort  of  amicable  oiiice.  Hut  the 
cabinet  council  of  English  creditors  would  not  suffer  their 
Nabob  of  Arcot  t<>  sign  the  treaty,  nor  even  to  give  to  a  prince, 
at  least  his  equal,  the  ordinary  titles  of  respect  and  courtesy. 
From  that  time  forward,  a  continued  plot  was  carried  on 
within  the  divan,  black  and  white,  of  the  nabob  of  Arcot,  for 
the  destruction  of  Ilyder  Ali.  As  to  the  outward  members  of 
the  double,  or  rather  treble,  government  of  Madras,  which  had 
signed  the  treaty,  they  were  always  prevented  by  some  over- 
ruling influence  (which  they  do  not  describe,  but  which  cannot 
be  iniMinderMood)  from  performing  what  justice  and  interest 
combined  so  evidently  to  enforce. 

AVhen  at  length  Ilyder  Ali  found  t  »iat  he  had  to  do  with  men 
who  either  wo.nld  sign  no  convent-oiV,  or  whom  no  treaty  and 
no  signature  could  bind,  and  who  were  the  determined  enemies 
of  human  intercourse  itself,  he  decreed  to  make  the  country 
HM!  by  these  incorrigible  and  predestinated  criminals  a 
memorable  example  to  mankind.  lie  resolved,  in  the  gloomy 


302  BURKE. 

recesses  of  a  mind  capacious  of  such  things,  to  leave  the  whole 
Carnatic  an  everlasting  monument  of  vengeance,  and  to  put 
perpetual  desolation  as  a  barrier  between  him  and  those  against 
whom  the  faith  .which  holds  the  moral  elements  together  was 
no  protection.  He  became  at  length  so  confident  of  his  force,  so 
collected  in  his  might,  that  he  made  no  secret  whatsoever  of  his 
dreadful  resolution.  Having  terminated  his  disputes  with  every 
enemy  and  every  rival,  who  buried  their  mutual  animosities  in 
their*common  detestation  against  the  creditors  of  the  Nabob  of 
Arcot,  he  drew,  from  every  quarter,  whatever  a  savage  ferocity 
could  add  to  his  new  rudiments  in  the  art  of  destruction  ;  and, 
compounding  all  the  materials  of  fury,  havoc,  and  'desolation 
into  one  black  cloud,  he  hung  for  a  while  on  the  declivities  of 
the  mountains,  "Whilst  the  authors  of  all  these  evils  were 
idly  and  stupidly  gazing  on  this  menacing  meteor,  which 
blackened  all  their  horizon,  it  suddenly  burst,  and  poured  down 
the  whole  of  its  contents  upon  the  plains  of  the  Carnatic. — 
Then  ensued  a  scene  of  woe,  the  like  of  which  no  eye  had  seen, 
no  heart  conceived,  and  which  no  tongue  can  adequately  tell. 
All  the  horrors  of  war  before  known  or  heard  of  were  mercy  to 
that  new  havoc.  A  storm  of  universal  fire  Ma>ted  every  field, 
consumed  every  house,  destroyed  every  temple.  The  misera- 
ble inhabitants,  flying  from  their  flaming  villages,  in  part  were 
slaughtered ;  others,  without  regard  to  sex,  to  age,  to  the 
respect  of  rank  or  sacredness  of  function,  fathers  torn  from 
children,  husbands  from  wives,  enveloped  in  a  whirlwind  of 
cavalry,  and,  amidst  the  goading  spears  of  drivers  and  the 
trampling  of  pursuing  horses,  were  swept  into  captivity,  in  an 
unknown  and  hostile  land.  Those  who  were  able  to  evade  this 
tempest  fled  to  the  walled  cities.  But,  escaping  from  fire, 
sword,  and  exile,  they  fell  into  the  jaws  of  famine. 

The  alms  of  the  settlement,  in  this  dreadful  exigency,  were 
certainly  liberal ;  and  all  was  done  by  charity  that  private 
charity  could  do;  but  it  was' a  people  in  beggary;  it  was  a 
nation  which  stretched  out  its  hands  for  food.  For  months 
tog-ether  these  creatures  of  sufferance,  whose  very  excess  and 
luxury  in  their  most  plenteous  days  had  fallen  short  of  the  al- 
lowance of  our  austerest  fasts,  silent,  patient,  resigned,  without 
sedition  or  disturbance,  almost  without  complaint,  perished  by 
an  hundred  a  day  in  the  streets  of  Madras  ;  every  day  soventy 
at  least  laid  their  bodies  inJ4ic  streets,  or  on  the  glacis  of  Tan- 
jore,  and  expired  of  fanii.^.  \«  the  granary  of  India.  I  was  going 
to  awake  your  justice  towards  this  unhappy  part  of  our  fellow- 
citizens,  by  bringing  before  you  some  of  the  ciivumstai: 
this  plague  of  hunger.  Of  all  the  calamities  which  beset  and 
waylay  the  life  of  man,  this  conies  the  nearest  to  our  heart,  and 


DESOLATION  OF  THE   CARXATIC.  303 

is  that  wherein  the  proudest  of  us  all  feels  himself  to  be  nothing 
more  than  lie  is  :  but  I  find  myself  unable  to  manage  it  with 
decorum:  these  details  are  of  a  species  of  horror  so  nauseous 
and  disgusting ;  they  are  so  degrading  to  the  sufferers  and  to 
the  hearers;  they  are  so  humiliating  to  human  nature  itself; 
that,  on  better  thoughts,  I  find  It  more  advisable  to  throw  a 
pall  over  this  hideous  object,  and  to  leave  it  to  your  general 
conceptions. 

For  eighteen  months,  without  intermission,  this  destruction 
raged  from  the  gates  of  Madras  to  the  gates  of  Tanjore  ;  and  so 
completely  did  those  masters  in  their  art,  Ilyder  All  and  his 
more  ferocious  son,  absolve  themselves  of  their  impious  vow, 
that,  when  the  British  armies  traversed,  as  they  did,  the  Car- 
natic  for  hundreds  of  miles  in  all  directions,  through  the  whole 
line  of  their  march  they  did  not  see  one  man,  not  one  woman, 
not  one  child,  not  one  four-footed  beast  of  any  description  what- 
ever. One  dead,  uniform  silence  reigned  over  the  whole  region. 
With  the  inconsiderable  exceptions  of  the  narrow  vicinage  of 
some  few  forts,  I  wish  to  be  understood  as  speaking  literally. 

The  Carnatic  is  a  country  not  much  inferior  in  extent  to  Eng- 
land. Figure  to  yourself,  Mr.  Speaker,  the  land  in  whoso 
representative  chair  you  sit;  figure  to  yourself  the  form  and 
fashion  of  your  sweet  and  cheerful  country  from  Thames  to 
Trent  north  and  south,  and  from  the  Irish  to  the  (lerman  Sea 
east  and  we>t,  emptied  and  embowelled  (may  Clod  avert  the 
omen  of  our  crimes!)  by  so  accomplished  a  desolation.  Extend 
your  imagination  a  little  further,  and  then  suppose  your  Minis- 
ters taking  a  survey  of  this  scene  of  waste-  and  desolation:  what 
would  be  your  thoughts,  ii  you  should  be  informed  that  they 
were  computing  how  much  had  been  the  amount  of  the  excises, 
how  much  the  customs,  how  much  the  land  and  malt  tax,  in 
order  that  they  might  charge  (take  it  in  the  most  favourable 
light)  for  public  service,  upon  the  relics  of  the  satiated  ven- 
g  'a'K-e  of  relentless  enemies,  the  whole  of  what  England  had 
yielded  in  the  most  exuberant  seasons  of  peace  and  abundance?0 
What  would  you  call  it?  To  call  it  tyranny  sublimed  into  mad- 

6  Rather  obscure,  perhaps.  Tho  meaning  seems  to  be,  that  the  British  Min- 
istry took  measures  lor  exacting,  or  extorting,  from  what  had  been  left  by  the 
frln tte<l  venge.-iiicr  of  enemies,  as  much  rcvdnue  as  England  had  yielded  in  the 

'••ductjve  seasons.    William  Pitt  the  younger  was  at  that  time  Prime. 

r;  but  the  member  of  (lie  Mini-try  at  whom  this  great  speech  was  chi-lly 
aimed  was  the  Uight-JIon.  Henry  Dundas,  afterwards  Viscount  Mrtville,  and 
First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  in  which  office  bis  malversation  drew  upon  him  an 
impeachment.  He  was  for  holding  the  revenues  of  the  exhausted  country  as 

i  or  mortgaged  for  payment  of  the  Nabob's  debts,  and  also  for  using  tho 
imperial  authority  to  enforce  that  payment,  though  the  debts  had  been  fraudu- 
lently contracted,  or  fabricated,  in  favour  of  private  individuals,  —  individuals 


304  BURKE. 

ness,  would  be  too  faint  an  image  ;  yet.  this  very  madness  is  the 
principle  upon  which  the  Ministers  at  your  right  hand  have  pro- 
ceeded in  their  estimate  of  the  revenues  of  the  Oarnatic,  when 
they  were  providing,  not  supply  for  the  establishments  of  its 
protection,  but  rewards  for  the  authors  of  its  ruin. 

The  Carnatic  is  not  by  the  bounty  of  Xature  a  fertile  soil. 
The  general  size  of  its  cattle  is  proof  enough  that  it  is  much 
otherwise.  It  is  some  days  since  I  moved  that  a  curious  and 
interesting  map,  kept  in  the  India  House,  should  be  laid  before 
you.  The  India  House  is  not  yet  in  readiness  to  se".d  ii  ;  I 
have  therefore  brought  down  my  own  copy,  and  there  it  1: 
the  use  of  any  gentleman  who  may  think  such  a  matter  worthy 
of  his  attention.  It  is  indeed  a  noble  map,  and  of  noble  things  ; 
but  it  is  decisive  against  the  golden  dreams,  ond  sanguin. 
illations  of  avarice  run  mad.  In  addition  to  what  you  know 
must  be  the  case  in  every  part  of  the  world,  (the  necessity  of  a 
previous  provision  of  habitation,  seed,  stock,  capital,  Hhat  map 
will  show  you  that  the  uses  of  the  influences  of  heaven  itself  are 
in  that  country  a  work  of  art.  The  Carnatic  i-  refreshed  by  few 
or  no  living  brooks  or  running  streams,  and  it  has  rain  only  at  a 
season;  but  its  product  of  rice  exacts  the  use  of  water  subject 
to  perpetual  command.  This  is  the  national  bank  of  the  Car- 
natic, on  which  it  must  have  a  perpetual  credit,  or  it  perishes 
irretrievably.  For  that  reason,  in  the  happier  times  of  India,  a 
number,  almost  incredible,  of  reservoirs  have  been  made  in 
chosen  places  throughout  the  whole  country  :  they  are  formed 
for  the  greater  part  of  mounds  of  earth  and  stones  with  sluices 
of  solid  masonry;  the  whole  constructed  with  admirable  skill 
and  labour,  and  maintained  at  a  mighty  charge.  In  the  terri- 
tory contained  in  that  map  alone,  I  have  been  at  the  trouble  of 
reckoning  the  reservoirs,  and  they  amount  to  upwards  of  eleven 
hundred,  from  the  extent  of  two  or  three  acres  to  five  miles  in 
circuit.  From  these  reservoirs  currents  are  occasionally  drawn 
over  the  fields,  and  these  water-courses  again  call  for  a  consid- 
erable expense  to  keep  them  properly  scoured  and  duly  lev- 
elled. Taking  the  district  in  that  map  as  a  measure,  there 
cannot  be  in  the  Carnatic  and  Tanjore  fewer  than  ten  thousand 
of  these  reservoirs  of  the  larger  and  middling  dimensions,  to 
say  nothing  of  those  for  domestic  services  and  the  uses  of  re- 
ligious purification.  These  are  not  the  enterprises  of  your 
power,  nor  in  a  style  of  magnificence  suited  to  the  taste  of  your 
Minister*.  These  are  the  monuments  of  real  kings,  who  were 
the  fathers  of  their  people ;  testators  to  a  posterity  which  they 

in  the  employment  indeed  of  tho  East  India  Company,  but  acting  without  the 
consent  or  knowledge  of  their  employers. 


DESOLATION   OF  THE   CARNATIC.  305 

embraced  as  their  own.  These  are  the  grand  sepulchres  built 
by  ambition  ;  but  by  the  ambition  of  an  insatiable  benevolence, 
which,  not  contented  with  reigning  in  the  dispensation  of  hap- 
piness during  the  contracted  term  of  human  life,  had  strained, 
with  all  the  reachings  and  graspings  of  a  vivacious  mind,  to  ex- 
tend the  dominion  of  their  bounty  beyond  the  limits  of  nature, 
and  to  perpetuate  themselves  through  generations  of  genera- 
tions, the  guardians,  the  protectors,  the  nourishers  of  mankind. 

Long  before  the  late  invasion,  the  persons  who  are  objects  of 
the  grant  of  public  money  now  before  you  had  so  diverted  the 
supply  of  the  pious  funds  of  culture  and  population,  that  every- 
where the  reservoirs  were  fallen  into  a  miserable  decay.  But 
after  those  domestic  enemies  had  provoked  the  entry  of  a  cruel 
foreign  1'oe  into  the  country,  he  did  not  leave  it,  until  his  re- 
venge had  completed  the  destruction  begun  by  their  avarice. 
Few,  very  few  indeed,  of  these  magazines  of  water  that  are  not 
either  totally  destroyed,  or  cut  through  with  such  gaps  as  to 
require  a  serious  attention  and  much  cost  to  reestablish  them, 
as  the  means  of  present  subsistence  to  the  people,  and  of  future 
revenue  to  the  Mate. 

What,  Sir,  would  a  virtuous  and  enlightened  Ministry  do  on 
the  view  of  the  ruins  of  such  works  before  them,— on  the  view 
of  such  a  chasm  of  desolation  as  that  which  yawned  in  the 
midst  of  those  countries  to  the  north  and  south  which  still  bore 
some  vestiges  of  cultivation?  They  would  have  reduced  all 
their  most  necessary  establishments  ;  they  would  have  sus- 
pended the  justest  payments;  they  would  have  employed  every 
shilling  derived  from  the  producing,  to  reanimate  the  powers  of 
the  unproductive,  parts.  While  they  were  performing  this  fun- 
damental duty,  whilst  they  were  celebrating  these  mysteries  of 
justice  and  humanity,  they  would  have  told  the  corps  of  ficti- 
tious creditors,  whose  crimes  were  their  claims,  that  they  must 
keep  an  awful  distance;  that  they  must  silence  their  inauspi- 
cious tongues;  that  they  must  hold  off  their  profane,  unhal- 
lowed paws  from  this  holy  work:  they  would  have  proclaimed, 
with  a  voice  that  should  make  itself  heard,  that  on  every  coun- 
try the  first  creditor  is  the  plough  ;  that  this  original,  indefeasi- 
ble claim  supersedes  every  other  demand. 

This  is  what  a  wise  and  virtuous  Ministry  would  have  done 
and  said.  This,  therefore,  is  what  our  Minister  could  never 
think  of  saying  or  doing.  .V  Ministry  of  another  kind  would 
have  first  improved  the  country,  and  have  thus  laid  a  solid 
foundation  for  future  opulence  and  future  force.  15ut,  on  this 
grand  point  of  the  restoration  of  the  country,  there  is  not  one 
syllable  to  be  found  in  the  correspondence  of  our  Ministers, 
from  the  iirst  to  the  last :  they  felt  nothing  for  a  land  desolated 


30G  BURKE. 

by  fire,  sword,  and  famine ;  their  sympathies  took  another 
direction  :  they  were  touched  with  pity  for  bribery,  so  long 
tormented  with  a  fruitless  itching  of  its  palms  ;  their  bowels 
yearned  for  usury,  that  had  long  missed  the  harvest  of  its  re- 
turning months  ; 7  they  felt  for  peculation,  which  had  been  for 
so  many  years  raking  in  the  dust  of  an  empty  treasury ;  they 
were  melted  into  compassion  for  rapine  and  oppression,  licking 
their  dry,  parched,  unbloody  jaws.  These  were  the  objects  of 
their  solicitude.  These  were  the  necessities  for  which  they 
were  studious  to  provide.—  Speech  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcot's  Debts, 
1785. 


UNLAWFULNESS  OF  ARBITRARY  POWER.8 

MY  LORDS,  you  have  now  heard  the  principles  on  which  Mr. 
Hastings  governs  the  part  of  Asia  subjected  to  the  British  em- 
pire. You  have  hoard  his  opinion  of  the  mean  and  depraved 
state  of  those  who  are  subject  to  it.  You  have  heard  his  lect- 
ure upon  arbitrary  power,  which  he  states  to  be  the  Consti- 
tution of  Asia.  You  hear  the  application  he  makes  of  it ;  and 
YOU  hoar  the  practices  which  he  employs  to  justify  it,  and  who 
the  persons  were  on  whose  authority  he  relies,  and  whose  ex- 
ample he  professes  to  follow.  In  the  first  place  your  Lordships 
will  ho  astonished  at  the  audacity  with  which  he  speaks  of  his 
own  administration,  as  if  he  was  reading  a  speculative  lecture 
on  the  evils  attendant  upon  some  vicious  system  of  foreign  gov- 
ernment in  which  he  had  no  sort  of  concern  whatsoever.  And 
then,  when  in  this  speculative  way  he  has  established,  or  thinks 

7  Interest  in  India  was  rated  by  the  month.    It  appears,  from  other  parts  of 
the.  .-peech,  that  the  interest  on  these  alleged  loans  to  the  Nabob  was  sometimes 
at  the  rate  of  two  or  three  per  cent  a-month.    Perhaps  I  ought  to  state  that  at 
the  time  in  question  these  loans  had  reached  the  stun  of  several  millions  ster- 
ling; and  that,  4  o  pay  this  enormous,  unauthorized,  fraudulent,  and  probably,  to 
a  great  extent,  fictitious  indebtedness,  or  at  least  the  exorbitant  interest  on  it, 
Dundas  had  set  himself  to  the  work  of  providing  funds  at  the  public  expense  : 
as  iUirke  puts  it,  "A  debt  of  millions,  in  favour  of  a  set  of  men  whoso,  uume.-, 
with  a  few  exceptions,  are  either  buried  in  the  obscurity  of  their  origin  and  tal- 
ents, or  draped  to  light  by  the  enormity  of  their  crimes." 

8  This  and  the  pieces  which  follow  it  are  from  J'.urke's  great  speeches  in  the 
arraignment  and  trial  of  Warren  Hastings.    His  opening  speech  occupied  four 
days  in  the  delivery;  and  this  passage  on  arbitrary  power  is  from  his  speech  on 
the  second  d:iy.  —  I  suppose  the  reader  will  of  course  understand  that  the  llou<e 
of  Lords  was  the  court  for  trying  the  impeachment,  just  as  the  National  Senate 
is  in  like  cases  with  us.    Burke  was  chief  Manager  for  the  House  of  Commons 
in  conducting  the  trial.  —  The  opening  speech  was  begun  on  Friday  the  15th  aud 
finished  on  Tuesday  the  10th  oi'Febi-uary,  17S8. 


UNLAWFULNESS   OF  ARBITRARY   POWER.  307 

he  has,  the  vices  of  the  government,  he  conceives  he  has  found 
a  sufficient  apology  for  his  own  crimes.  And  if  he  violates  the 
most  solemn  engagements,  if  he  oppresses,  extorts,  and  robs,  if 
he  imprisons,  confiscates,  banishes  at  his  sole  will  and  pleasure, 
when  we  accuse  him  for  his  treatment  of  the  people  committed 
to  him  as  a  sacred  trust,  his  defence  is, — "To  be  robbed,  vio- 
lated, oppressed,  is  their  privilege.  Let  the  Constitution  of 
their  country  answer  for  it.  I  did  not  make  it  for  them.  Slaves 
I  found  them,  and  as  slaves  I  have  treated  them.  I  was  a 
despotic  prince.  Despotic  governments  are  jealous,  and  the 
subjects  prone  to  rebellion.  This  very  proneness  of  the  sub- 
ject to  shake  off  his  allegiance  exposes  him  to  continual  danger 
from  his  sovereign's  jealousy;  and  this  is  consequent  on  the 
political  state  of  Hindostanic  governments."  He  lays  it  down 
as  a  rule,  that  despotism  is  the  genuine  constitution  of  India; 
that  a  disposition  to  rebellion  in  the  subject  or  dependent 
prince  is  the  necessary  effect  of  this  despotism;  and  that  jeal- 
ousy and  its  consequences  naturally  arise  on  the  part  of  the 
sovereign  ;  that  the  government  is  every  thing,  and  the  subject 
nothing;  that  the  gival  landed  men  are  in  a  mean  and  depraved 
state,  and  subject  to  many  evils. 

Such  a  state  of  things,  if  true,  would  warrant  conclusions  di- 
i-'-ctly  the  opposite  of  those  which  Mr.  Hastings  means  to  draw 
from  them,  both  argunieiitatively  and  practically,  first,  to  influ- 
ence his  conduct,  and  then,  to  bottom  his  defence  of  it. 

Perhaps  you  will  imagine  that  the  man  who  avows  these 
principles  of  arbitrary  government,  and  pleads  them  as  the 
justification  of  acts  which  nothing  else  can  justify,  is  of  opinion 
that  they  are  on  the  whole  good  for  the  people  over  whom  they 
are  ex< -rcised.  The  very  reverse.  He  mentions  them  as  hor- 
rible things,  tending  to  inflict  on  the  people  a  thousand  evils, 
and  to  bring  on  the  ruler  a  continual  train  of  dangers.  Yet  ho 
states  that  your  acquisitions  in  India  will  be  a  detriment  in- 
stead of  an  advantage,  unless  you  can  reduce  all  the  religious 
.lilishmcnts,  all  the  civil  institutions,  and  tenures  of  land, 
into  one  uniform  mass ;  that  is,  unless  you  extinguish  all  the 
laws,  rights,  and  religious  principles  of  the  people,  and  force 
them  to  an  uniformity,  and  on  that  uniformity  build  a  system 
of  arbitrary  power. 

J3ut  nothing  is  more  false  than  that  despotism  is  the  Consti- 
tution of  any  country  in  Asia  that  we  are  acquainted  with.  It 
is  certainly  not  true  of  any  Mahomedan  Constitution.  But,  if 
it  were,  do  your  Lordships  really  think  that  the  nation  would 
bear,  that  any  human  creature  would  bear,  to  hear  an  English 
governor  defend  himself  on  such  principles?  or,  if  he  can  de- 
fend- himself  on  such  principles,  is  it  possible  to  deny  the  con- 


308  BURKE. 

elusion,  that  no  man  in  India  has  a  security  for  any  thing,  but 
by  being  totally  independent  of  the  British  government?  Here 
he  has  declared  his  opinion,  that  he  is  a  despotic  prince,  that 
he  is  to  use  arbitrary  power;  and  of  course  all  his  acts  are  cov- 
ered by  that  shield.  "  I  know,"  says  he,  "  the  Constitution  «f  A  ^d 
onlt/from  its  practice."  Will  your  Lordships  submit  to  hear  the 
corrupt  practices  of  mankind  made  the  principles  of  govern- 
ment? No!  it  will  be  your  pride  and  glory  to  teach  men  in- 
trusted with  power,  that,  in  their  use  of  it,  they  are  to  conform 
to  principles,  and  not  to  draw  their  principles  from  the  corrupt 
practice  of  any  man  whatever.  Was  there  ever  heard,  or  could 
it  be  conceived,  that  a  governor  would  dare  to  heap  up  all  the 
evil  practices,  all  the  cruelties,  oppressions,  extortions,  corrup- 
tions, briberies,  of  all  the  ferocious  usurpers,  desperate  robbers, 
thieves,  cheats,  and  jugglers,  that  ever  had  office,  from  one  end 
of  Asia  to  another,  and,  consolidating  all  this  mass  of  the 
crimes  and  absurdities  of  barbarous  domination  into  one  code, 
establish  it  as  the  whole  duty  of  an  English  governor?  I 
believe  that  till  this  time  so  audacious  a  thing  was  never  at- 
tempted by  man. 

lie  have  arbitrary  power  1  My  Lords,  the  East  India  Com- 
pany have  not  arbitrary  power  to  give  him ;  the  King  has  no 
arbitrary  power  to  give  him  ;  your  Lordships  have  not ;  nor  the 
Commons,  nor  the  whole  legislature.  We  have  no  arbitrary 
power  to  give,  because  arbitrary  power  is  a  thing  which  neither 
any  man  can  hold  nor  any  man  can  give.  No  man  can  lawfully 
govern  himself  according  to  his  own  will;  much  less  can  one 
person  be  governed  by  the  will  of  another.  We  are  all  born  in 
subjection,  — all  born  equally,  high  and  low,  governors  and  gov- 
erned, in  subjection  to  one  great,  immutable,  progxistent  law, 
prior  to  all  our  devices  and  prior  to  all  our  contrivances,  para- 
mount to  all  our  ideas  and  all  our  sensations,  antecedent  to  our 
very  existence,  by  which  we  are  knit  and  connected  in  the  eter- 
nal frame  of  the  universe,  out  of  which  we  cannot  stir. 

This  great  law  does  not  arise  from  our  conventions  or  com- 
pacts; on  the  contrary,  it  gives  to  our  conventions  and  compacts 
ail  the  force  and  sanction  they  can  have.  It  does  not  arise  from 
our  vain  institutions.  Every  good  gift  is  of  God  ;  all  power  is 
of  God ;  and  He  who  has  given  the  power,  and  from  whom 
alone  it  originates,  will  never  suffer  the  exercise  of  it  to  be  prac- 
tised upon  any  less  solid  foundation  than  the  power  itself.  If, 
then,  all  dominion  of  man  over  man  is  the  effect  of  the  Divine 
disposition,  it  is  bound  by  the  eternal  laws  of  Him  that  gave  it, 
with  which  no  human  authority  can  dispense,— neither  he  that 
exercises  it,  nor  even  those  who  are  subject^ to  it ;  and  if  they 
were  mad  enough  to  make  an  express  compact  that  should 


UNLAWFULNESS   OF   ARBITRARY   TOWER.  309 

release  their  magistrate  from  his  duty,  and  should  declare  their 
lives,  liberties,  and  properties  depended  upon,  not  rules  and 
laws,  but  his  mere  capricious  will,  that  covenant  would  be  void. 
The  acceptor  oi'  it  has  not  his  authority  increased,  but  he  has 
his  crime  doubled.  Therefore,  can  it  be  imagined,  if  this  be 
true,  that  He  will  suffer  this  great  gift  of  government,  the 
greatest,  the  best  that,  was  ever  given  by  God  to  mankind,  to  bo 
the  plaything  and  the  sport  of  the  feeble  will  of  a  man  who,  by 
a  blasphemous,  absurd,  and  petulant  usurpation,  would  place 
his  own  feeble,  contemptible,  and  ridiculous  will  in  the  place  of 
the  Divine  wisdom  and  justice? 

The  title  of  conquest  makes  no  difference  at  all.  No  conquest 
can  give  such  a  right;  for  conquest,  that  is,  force,  cannot  con- 
vert its  own  injustice  into  a  just  title,  by  which  it  may  rule 
others  at  its  pleasure.  By  conquest,  which  is  a  more  immedi- 
ate designation  of  the  hand  of  God,  the  conqueror  succeeds  to 
all  the  painful  duties  and  subordination  to  the  power  of  God 
which  belonged  to  the  sovereign  whom  he  has  displaced,  jiut 
as  if  he  had  come  in  by  the  positive  law  of  some  descent  or 
some  election.  To  this  at  least  lie  is  strictly  bound:  he  ought 
to  govern  them  as  he  governs  his  own  subjects.  ]>ut  every  wise 
conqueror  has  gone  much  further  than  he  was  bound  to  go.  It 
ha*  been  his  ambition  and  his  policy  to  reconcile  the  van- 
quished to  his  fortune,  to  show  that  they  had  gained  by  the 
chanue  ;  to  convert  their  momentary  suffering  into  a  long  bene- 
fit, and  to  draw  from  the  humiliation  of  his  enemies  an  acces- 
sion to  his  own  glory.  This  has  been  so  constant  ;i  practice, 
that  it  is  to  repeat  the  histories  of  all  politic  conquerors  in  all 
nations  and  in  all  times;  and  1  will  not  so  much  distrust  your 
Lordships'  enlightened  and  discriminating  studies  and  correct 
memories  as  to  allude  to  one  of  them.  1  will  only  show  you 
that  the  Court  oi'  Directors,  under  whom  he  served,  has  adopted 
that  idea;  that  they  constantly  inculcated  it  to  him,  and  to  all 
their  servants  ;  that  they  run  a  parallel  bet  ween  their  own  and 
the  native  government,  and,  supposing  it  to  be  very  evil,  did  not 
hold  it  upas  an  example  to  be  followed,  but  as  an  abuse  to  be 
'•orrected;  that  they  never  made  it  a  question,  whether  India 
is  to  be  improved  by  English  law  and  liberty,  or  English  law 
and  liberty  vitiated  by  Indian  corruption. 

No,  my  Lords,  this  arbitrary  [tower  is  not  to  be  had  by  con- 
Nor  can  any  sovereign  have  it  by  succession  ;  for  no 
man  can  succeed  to  fraud,  rapine,  and  violence.  Neither  by 
compact,  covenant,  nor  submission,  — for  men  cannot  covenant 
themselves  out  of  their  rights  and  their  duties,  — nor  by  any 
other  means,  can  arbitrary  power  be  conveyed  to  any  man. 
Those  who  give  to  others  such  rights  perform  acts  that  are  void 


310  BURKE. 

as  they  are  given,— good  indeed  and  valid  only  as  tending  to 
subject  themselves,  and  those  who  act  with  them,  to  the  Divine 
displeasure ;  because  morally  there  can  be  no  such  power. 
Those  who  give  and  those  who  receive  arbitrary  power  are 
alike  criminal ;  and  there  is  no  man  but  is  bound  to  resist  it  to 
the  best  of  his  power,  wherever  it  shall  show  its  face  to  the 
•world.  It  is  a  crime  to  bear  it,  when  it  can  be  rationally  shaken 
off.  Nothing  but  absolute  impotence  can  justify  men  in  not 
resisting  it. 

Law  and  arbitrary  power  are  in  eternal  enmity.  Name  me  a 
magistrate,  and  I  will  name  property ;  name  me  a  power,  and 
I  will  name  protection.  It  is  a  contradiction  in  terms,  it  is 
blasphemy  in  religion,  it  is  wickedness  in  politics,  to  say  that 
any  man  can  have  arbitrary  power.  In  every  patent  of  oflice 
the  duty  is  included.  For  what  else  does  a  magistrate  exist? 
To  suppose,  for  power,  is  an  absurdity  in  idea.  Judges  are 
guided  and  governed  by  the  eternal  laws  of  justice,  to  which 
we  are  all  subject.  We  may  bite  our  chains  if  we  will,  but  we 
shall  be  made  to  know  ourselves,  and  be  taught  that  man  is 
born  to  be  governed  by  law  ;  and  he  that  will  substitute  will  in 
the  place  of  it  is  an  enemy  to  God. 

Despotism  does  not  in  the  smallest  degree  abrogate,  alter,  or 
lessen  any  one  relation  of  life,  or  weaken  the  force  or  obliga- 
tion of  any  one  engagement  or  contract  whatsoever.  I> 
ism,  it'  it  means  any  thing  that  is  at  all  defensible,  means  a 
mode  of  government  bound  by  no  written  rules,  and  coerced  by 
no  controlling  magistracies  or  well-settled  orders  in  the  State. 
I3ut,  if  it  has  no  written  law,  it  neither  does  nor  can  cancel  the 
the  primeval,  indefeasible,  unalterable  law  of  Nature  and  of  na- 
tions ;  and  if  no  magistracies  control  its  exertions,  those 
tions  must  derive  their  limitation  and  direction  either  from  the 
equity  and  moderation  of  the  ruler,  or  from  downright  revolt  on 
the  part  of  the  subject,  by  rebellion  divested  of  all  its  criminal 
qualities.  The  moment  a  sovereign  removes  the  idea  of  secu- 
rity and  protection  from  his  subjects,  and  declares  that  he  is 
every  thing  and  they  nothing ;  when  he  declares  that  no  con- 
tract he  makes  with  them  can  or  ought  to  bind  him,  he  then 
declares  war  upon  them:  he  is  no  longer  sovereign;  they  are 
no  longer  subjects. 


CRUELTIES  OF  DEBI  SI^G.  311 


CRUELTIES  OF  DEBI  SING.9 

IT  is  the  nature  of  tyranny  and  rapacity  never  to  learn  mod- 
eration from  the  ill-success  of  first  oppressions :  on  the  con- 
trary, all  oppressors,  all  men  thinking  highly  of  the  methods 
dictated  by  their  nature,  attribute  the  frustration  of  their  do- 
sires  to  the  want  of  sufficient  vigour.  Then  they  redouble  the 
efforts  of  their  impotent  cruelty;  which  producing,  as  they 
must  ever  produce,  new  disappointments,  they  grow  irritated 
against  the  objects  of  their  rapacity ;  and  then  rage,  fury,  mal- 
ice, implacable  because  unprovoked,  recruiting  and  reinforcing 
their  avarice,  their  vices  are  no  longer  human.  From  cruel 
men  they  are  transformed  into  savage  beasts,  with  no  other 
vestiges  of  reason  left  but  what  serve  to  furnish  the  inventions 
and  refinements  of  ferocious  subtlety,  for  purposes  of  which 
beasts  are  incapable,  and  at  which  fiends  would  blush. 

I)ebi  Sing  and  his  instruments  suspected,  and  in  a  few  cases 
t  !H'\  suspected  justly,  that  the  country  people  had  purloined  from 
their  own  estates,  and  had  hidden  in  secret  places  in  the  circum- 
jacent deserts,  some  small  reserve  of  their  own  grain,  to  main- 
tain themselves  during  the  unproductive  months  of  the  year, 
and  to  leave  some  hope  for  a  future  season.  But  the  uwler- 
tvrants  knew  that  the  demands  of  ]SIr.  Hastings  would  admit 
no  plea  for  delay,  much  less  for  the  subtraction  of  his  bribe; 
and  that  he  would  not  abate  a  shilling  of  it  to  the  wants  of  the 
whole  human  race.  These  hoards,  real  or  supposed,  not  being 
discovered  by  menaces  and  imprisonment,  they  fell  upon  the 
last  resource,  the  naked  bodies  of  the  people.  And  here,  my 
Lords,  began  such  a  scene  of  cruelties  and  tortures  as  I  believe 
no  history  has  ever  presented  to  the  indignation  of  the  world  ; 
—  such  us  "I  am  sure,  in  the  most  barbarous  ages,  no  politic 
t  \  runny,  no  fanatic  persecution,  has  ever  yet  exceeded. 

0  The  following  piece  is  from  the  third  day  of  Burke's  opening  speech.— 
"Warren  Hastings  was  l'<>r  sonic  thirteen  years  Governor-General  of  the  British 
Knipire  in  India.  During  hid  rule  the  most  outrageous  frauds,  rapines,  opprcs- 
',d  cruelties  were  practised  upon  the  native  inhabitants  by  his  subordi- 
nates, and  with  his  sanction,  or  at  least  his  allowance.  Debi  Sing  was  a  native 
of  the  country,  and  was  notoriously  steeped  in  all  the  worst  virulence  of  East- 
ern luxury,  profligacy,  and  rapacity.  By  the  payment,  or  the  promise,  of  an 
enormous  bribe,  to  Hastings,  he  got  himself  armed  with  full  authority  and  power 
t  >  collect  tl.e  taxes  and  revenues  of  certain  provinces;  that  is,  to  enrich  himself 
as  much  as  he  possibly  could,  by  whatever  means  he  might  choose  to  employ. 
,  rovinccs  were  then  turned  over,  unreservedly,  to  his  merciless  avarice 
and  revenge,  to  be  distressed,  plundered,  and  ravaged,  at  his  pleasure.  It  was 
in  pursuance  of  this  scheme  that  he  perpetrated  the  horrible  inhumanities  hero 
described. 


312  BURKE. 

My  Lords,  they  began  by  winding  cords  round  the  fingers  of 
the  unhappy  freeholders  of  those  provinces,  until  they  clung  to 
and  were  almost  incorporated  with  one  another  ;  and  then  they 
hammered  wedges  of  iron  between  them,  until,  regardless  of  the 
cries  of  the  sufferers,  they  had  bruised  to  pieces  and  for  ever 
crippled  those  poor,  honest,  innocent,  laborious  hands,  which 
had  never  been  raised  to  their  mouths  but  with  a  penurious 
and  scanty  proportion  of  the  fruits  of  their  own  soil :  but  those 
fruits  (denied  to  the  wants  of  their  own  children)  have  furnished 
the  investment  of  our  trade  with  China,  and  been  sent  annually 
out,  and  without  recompense,  to  purchase  for  us  that  delicate 
meal  with  which  your  Lordships,  and  all  this  auditory,  and  all 
this  country,  have  begun  every  day  for  these  fifteen  years  at 
their  expense.  To  those  beneficent  hands  that  labour  for  our 
benefit  the  return  of  the  British  government  has  been  cords 
and  hammers  and  wedges.  But  there  is  a  place  where  these 
crippled  and  disabled  hands  will  act  with  resistless  power. 
What  is  it  that  they  will  not  pull  down,  when  they  are  lifted  to 
] leaven  against  their  oppressors?  Then  what  can  withstand 
such  hands?  Can  the  power  that  crushed  and  destroyed  them? 
Powerful  in  prayer,  let  us  at  least  deprecate,  and  thus  en- 
deavour to  secure  ourselves  from,  the  vengeance  which  these 
mashed  and  disabled  hands  may  pull  down  upon  us.  .My 
Lords,  it  is  an  awful  consideration  !  let  us  think  of  it. 

But,  to  pursue  this  melancholy  but  necessary  detail.  I  am 
next  to  open  to  your  Lordships,  that  the  mo>t  substantial  and 
leading  yeomen,  the  responsible  farmers,  the  parochial  magis- 
trates and  chiefs  of  villages,  were  tied  two  and  two  by  the 
legs  together ;  and  their  tormentors,  throwing  them  with  their 
heads  downwards,  over  a  bar,  beat  them  on  the  soles  of  the  feet 
with  rattans,  until  the  nails  fell  from  the  toes  ;  and  then  attack- 
ing them  at  their  heads,  as  they  hung  downward,  as  before  at 
their  feet,  they  beat  them  with  sticks  and  other  instruments  of 
blind  fury,  until  the  blood  gushed  out  at  their  eyes,  mouths, 
and  noses.  Not  thinking  that  the  ordinary  whips  and  cudgels, 
even  so  administered,  Avere  sufficient,  to  others  (and  often  also 
to  the  same  who  had  suffered  as  I  have  stated)  they  applied,  in- 
stead of  rattan  and  bamboo,  whips  made  of  the  branches  of 
the  bale-tree, — a  tree  full  of  sharp  and  strong  thorns,  which 
tear  the  skin  and  lacerate  the  flesh  far  worse  than  ordinary 
scourges.  For  others,  exploring  with  a  searching  and  inquisi- 
tive malice,  stimulated  by  an  insatiate  rapacity,  all  the  devious 
paths  of  Nature  for  whatever  is  most  unfriendly  to  man,  they 
made  rods  of  a  plant  highly  caustic  and  poisonous,  called 
Hcchettea,  every  wound  of  which  festers  and  gangrenes,  adds 
double  and  treble  to  the  present  torture,  leaves  a  crust  of  lep- 


: 

AW 


CRUELTIES   OF   DEBT   SING.  313 

rous  sores  upon  the  body,  and  often  ends  in  the  destruction  of 
life  itself.  At  night,  these  poor  innocent  sufferers,  these  mar- 
tyrs of  avarice  and  extortion,  were  brought  into  dungeons;  and, 
in  the  season  when  nature  takes  refuge  in  insensibility  from 
all  the  miseries  and  cares  which  wait  on  life,  they  were  three 
times  scourged,  and  made  to  reckon  the  watches  of  the  night  by 
periods  and  intervals  of  torment.  They  were  then  led  out,  in 
the  severe  depth  of  Winter,  which  there  at  certain  seasons 
would  be  severe  to  any,  to  the  Indians  is  most  severe  and  al- 
mo>t  intolerable, — they  were  led  out  before  break  of  day,  and, 
stiff  and  sore  as  they  were  with  the  bruises  and  wounds  of  the 
night,  were  plunged  into  water;  and,  whilst  their  jaws  clung 
together  with  the  cold,  and  their  bodies  were  rendered  infi- 
nitely more  sensible,  the  blows  and  stripes  were  renewed  upon 
their  backs ;  and  then,  delivering  them  over  to  soldiers,  they 
-ent  into  their  farms  and  villages  to  discover  where  the 
lew  handfuls  of  grain  might  be  found  concealed,  or  to  extract 
some  loan  from  the  remnants  of  compassion  and  courage  not- 
subdued  in  those  who  had  reason  to  fear  that  their  own  turn  of 
torment  would  be  next,  and  that  their  very  humanity,  being 
taken  as  a  proof  of  their  wealth,  would  subject  them  (as  it  did 
in  many  cases  subject  them)  to  the  same  inhuman  tortures. 
After  this  circuit  of  the  day  through  their  plundered  and  ru- 
ined villages,  they  were  remanded  at  night  to  the  same  prison, 
whipped,  as  before,  at  their  return  to  the  dungeon,  and  at  morn- 
ing whipped  at  their  leaving  it,  and  then  sent,  as  before,  to  pur- 
chase, by  begging  in  the  day,  the  reiteration  of  the  torture  in 
the  night.  Days  of  menace,  insult,  and  extortion,  nights  of 
bolts,  fetters,  and  llageilntion,  succeeded  to  each  other  in  the 
sune  round,  and  for  a  long  time  made  up  all  the  vicissitudes  of 
life  to  those  miserable  people. 

lint  there  are  persons  whose  fortitude  could  bear  their  own 
suffering  ;  there  are  men  who  are  hardened  by  their  very  pains, 
and  the  mind,  strengthened  even  by  the  torments  of  the  body, 
vises  with  a  strong  defiance  against  its  oppressor.  They  were 
assaulted  on  the  side  of  their  sympathy.  Children  were 
scourged  almost  to  death  in  the  presence  of  their  parents. 
This  was  not  enough.  The  son  and  father  were  bound  close 
together,  face  to  face  and  body  to  body,  and  in  that  situation 
cruelly  lashed  together,  so  that  the  blow  which  escaped  the 

tlier  fell  upon  the  son,  and  the  blow  which  missed  the  son 
wound  over  the  back  of  the  parent.  The  circumstances  were 
combined  with  so  subtle  a  cruelty,  that  every  stroke  which  did 
not  excruciate  the  sense  should  wound  and  lacerate  the  senti- 
ments and  affections  of  nature. 

On  the  same  principle,  and  for  the  same  ends,  virgins,  who 


314  BUKKE. 

had  never  seen  the  Sun,  were  dragged  from  the  inmost  sanctu- 
aries of  their  houses,  and  in  the  open  court  of  justice,  in  the 
very  place  where  security  was  to  be  sought  against  all  wrong 
and  all  violence,  (but  where  no  judge  or  lawful  magistrate  had 
long  sat,  but,  in  their  place,  the  ruffians  and  hangmen  of  "\Var- 
rcn  Hastings  occupied  the  bench,)  these  virgins,  vainly  invoking 
Heaven  and  Earth  in  the  presence  of  their  parents,  and  whilst 
their  shrieks  were  mingled  with  the  indignant  cries  and  groans 
of  all  the  people,  publicly  were  violated  by  the  l<»\u->t  and 
wickedest  of  the  human  race.  Wives  were  torn  from  the  arms 
of  their  husbands,  and  suffered  the  same  flagitious  wrongs, 
which  were  indeed  hid  in  the  bottoms  of  the  dungeons  in  which 
their  honour  and  their  liberty  were  buried  together.  Often 
they  were  taken  out  of  the  refuge  of  this  consoling  gloom, 
stripped  naked,  and  thus  exposed  to  the  world,  and  then  cruelly 
scourged  ;  and,  in  order  that  cruelty  might  riot  in  all  the  cir- 
cumstances that .melt  into  tenderness  the  fiercest  natures,  tin- 
nipples  of  their  breasts  were  put  between  the  sharp  and  elastic 
sides  of  cleft  bamboos.  Here  in  my  hand  is  my  authority  ;  for 
otherwise  one  would  think  it  incredible.  But  it  did  not  end  there. 
Growing  from  crime  to  crime,  ripened  by  cruelty  for  cruelty, 
these  fiends,  at  length  outraging  sex,  decency,  nature,  applied 
lighted  torches  and  slow  fire — (I  cannot  proceed  for  shame  and 
horror  !)— these  infernal  furies  planted  death  in  the  source  of 
life  ;  and  where  that  modesty  which,  more  than  reason,  distin- 
guishes men  from  beasts  retires  from  the  view,  and  even  shrinks 
from  the  expression,  there  they  exercised  and  glutted  their 
unnatural,  monstrous  and  nefarious  cruelty,— there  where  the 
reverence  of  nature  and  the  sanctity  of  justice  dares  not  to  pur- 
sue, nor  venture  to  describe  their  practices.1 

1  During  the  delivery  of  this  speech,  the  House  of  Lords  was  packed  to  its 
utmost  capacity  with  whatever  was  most  illustrious  in  the  kingdom.  It  is  said 
that,  while  giving  utterance  to  this  appalling  description,  Burkc's  eyes  \\rre 
literally  streaming  and  his  whole  frame  quivering  with  emotion;  and  that  the 
vast  audience,  their  feelings  having  beeu  gradually  wrought  up  to  the  climax, 
could  not  restrain  themselves.  I  quote  from  Mjicknight's  Life  and  Time*  cf 
llurle:  "The  whole  assembly  were  deeply  affected.  Mrs.  Siddons  < 
that  all  the  illusions  of  the  stage  sank  into  insignificance  before  :. 
then  beheld;  and  the  great  actress  did  homage  t>>  the  great  orator.  Mrs.  Sheri- 
dan fainted.  Even  the  stern  Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow,  who  was  deeply  preju- 
diced both  against  Burke  and  the  cause  he  advocated,  could  not  keep  up  his 
sullen  hostility,  and  for  the  lirtt  time  in  his  life  a  tear  was  observed  to  lie  in  his 
eye.  But  the  most  wonderful  etlect  was  produced  on  Hastings  himself.  lie 
hated  Burke,  and  had  despised  him,  until  he  had  by  stern  experience  been  com- 
pelled to  fear  him.  As  he  listened  to  the  harrowing  recital  of  crimes  which,  if 
he  had  not  authorized,  he  most  certainly  had  not  censured,  even  his  callous 
heart  seemed  to  feel  the  pangs  of  sorrow  and  remorse,  and  for  the  moment  ho 
thought  himself  the  most  wicked  of  mankind.  The  orator  at  length  was  over- 


IMPEACHMENT  OF   HASTINGS.  315 

These,  my  Lords,  were  sufferings  which  we  feel  all  in  com- 
mon, in  India  and  in  England,  by  the  general  sympathy  of  our 
common  nature.  But  there  were  in  that  province  (sold  to  the 
tormentors  by  Mr.  Hastings)  things  done,  which,  from  the 
peculiar  manners  of  India,  were  even  worse  than  all  I  have  laid 
before  you  ;  as  the  dominion  of  manners  and  the  law  of  opinion 
contribute  more  to  human  happiness  and  misery  than  any  thing 
in  mere  sensitive  nature  can  do. 

The  women  thus  treated  lost  their  caste.  My  Lords,  we  are 
not  here  to  commend  or  blame  the  institutions  and  prejudices 
of  a  whole  race  of  people,  radicated  in  them  by  a  long  succes- 
sion of  ages,  on  which  no  reason  or  argument,  on  which  no 
vicissitudes  of  things,  no  mixtures  of  men,  or  foreign  conquest, 
have  been  able  to  make  the  smallest  impression.  The  aborigi- 
nal Gentoo  inhabitants  are  all  dispersed  into  tribes  or  castes, — 
each  caste  born  to  an  invariable  rank,  rights,  and  descriptions 
of  employment,  so  that  one  caste  cannot  by  any  means  pass 
into  another.  With  the  Gentoos,  certain  impurities  or  dis- 
graces, though  without  any  guilt  of  the  party,  infer  loss  of 
caste  ;  and  when  the  highest  caste,  that  of  Brahmin,  which  is 
not  only  noble,  but  sacred,  is  lost,  the  person  who  loses  it  does 
not  slide  down  into  one  lower,  but  reputable, —  he  is  wholly 
driven  from  ail  honest  society.  All  the  relations  of  life  are  at 
once  dissolved.  His  parents  are  no  longer  his  parents;  his  wife 
is  no  longer  his  wife  ;  his  children,  no  longer  his,  are  no  longer 
to  regard  him  as  their  father.  It  is  something  far  worse  than 
complete  outlawry,  complete  attainder,  and  universal  excommu- 
nication. It  is  a  pollution  even  to  touch  him  ;  and  if  he  touches 
any  of  his  old  caste,  they  are  justified  in  putting  him  to  death. 
Contagion,  leprosy,  plague  are  not  so  much  shunned.  No  hon- 
est occupation  can  be  followed.  He  becomes  an  halicore,  if 
(which  is  rare)  he  survives  that  miserable  degradation. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  HASTINGS.2 

MY  LORDS,  what  is  it  that  we  want  here  to  a  great  act  of 
national  justice  V  Do  we  want  a  cause,  my  Lords?  You  have 

come  by  liia  own  feelings;  his  tongue  seemed  to  be  paralyzed  by  his  emotion; 
while  scorn  and  horror  were  depicted  upon  his  brow,  and  the  lightning  of  indig- 
nation flashed  from  his  eye." 

2  This  piece  makes  the  conclusion  of  Burke's  opening  speech.  The  speaker 
had  held  his  audience  undiminished  through  the  whole  four  days  of  his  speak- 
ing; ai:;!  when  he  came  to  the  close  his  powerful  voice  rose  and  swelled  to  its 


316  BURKE. 

the  cause  of  oppressed  princes,  of  undone  women  of  the  first 
rank,  of  desolated  provinces,  and  of  wasted  kingdoms. 

Do  you  want  a  criminal,  my  Lords?  When  was  there  so 
much  iniquity  ever  laid  to  the  charge  of  any  one  ?  Xo,  my 
Lords,  you  must  not  look  to  punish  any  other  such  delinquent 
from  India.  Warren  Hastings  has  not  left  substance  enough  in 
India  to  nourish  Midi  another  delinquent. 

My  Lords,  is  it  a  prosecutor  you  want?  You  have  before  you 
the  Commons  of  Great  Britain  as  prosecutors:  and  I  believe, 
my  Lords,  that  the  Sun,  in  his  beneficent  progress  round  the 
world,  does  not  behold  a  more  glorious  sight  than  that  of  men, 
separated  from  a  remote  people  by  the  material  bounds  and 
barriers  of  Nature,  united  by  the  bond  of  a  social  and  moral 
community;  all  the  Commons  of  England  resenting,  as  their 
own,  the  indignities  and  cruelties  that  are  offered  to  all  the 
people  of  India. 

Do  we  want  a  tribunal?  My  Lords,  no  example  of  antiq- 
uity, nothing  in  the  modern  world,  nothing  in  the  range  of 
human  imagination,  can  supply  us  with  a  tribunal  like  this.  Ms- 
Lords,  here  we  see  virtually,  in  the  mind's  eye,  that  sacred 
majesty  of  the  Crown,  under  whose  authority  you  --it.  and  whose 
power  you  exercise.  We  see  in  that  invisible  authority,  what 
we  all  feel  in  reality  and  life,  the  beneficent  powers  and  protect- 
ing justice  of  his  Majesty.  We  have  here  the  heir-apparent  to 
the  crown,  such  as  the  fond  wishes  of  the  people  of  England 
wish  an  heir-apparent  of  the  crown  to  be.  AVe  have  lien- all 
the  branches  of  the  royal  family,  in  a  situation  betsveen  majesty 
and  subjection,  bet  ween  the  sovereign  and  the  subject,—  offer- 
ing a  pledge  in  that  situation  for  the  support  of  the  rights  of  the 
Crown  and  the  liberties  of  the  people,  both  which  extremities 
they  touch.  My  Lords,  we  have  the  great  hereditary  pet-rage 
here, —  those  who  has'e  their  own  honour,  the  honour  ol  their 
ancestors,  and  of  their  posterity,  to  guard,  and  who  will  justify, 
as  they  have  always  justified,  that  provision  in  the  Constitution 
by  which  justice  is  made  an  hereditary  office.  My  Lords,  we 
have  here  a  new  nobility,  who  have  risen  and  exalted  them- 
selves by  various  merits,— by  great  military  services  which 

utmost  compass,  rolling  and  reverberating  through  the  lofty  arches  of  (ho 
house,  and  bowing  the  hearts  of  his  audience  in  the  deepest  solemnity.  SVilliam 
Windham,  a  first-rate  judge  of  oratory,  and  himself  no  mean  orator,  \vlio  was 
associated  with  Burke,  as  Fox  and  Sheridan  also  were,  in  the  management 
of  the  trial,  pronounced  this  peroration  "  the  noblest  ever  uttered  by  man." 
The  whole  speech,  indeed,  taken  all  together,  i-^  unrivalled  in  British  eloquence, 
perhaps  in  all  eloquence.  But  the  most  astonishing  fe attire  of  the  speech  is  the 
perfect  intellectual  mastery  it  displays  of  the  entire  subject,  both  as  a  whole  and 
in  all  its  minutest  details,  — that  subject  the  largest  too  ever  attempted  to  be 
handled  in  any  effort  of  the  kind. 


IMPEACHMENT   OF   HASTINGS.  317 

have  extended  the  fame  of  this  country  from  the  rising  to  the 
setting  Sun.  We  have  those  who,  by  various  civil  merits  and 
various  civil  talents,  have  been  exalted  to  a  situation  which  they 
well  deserve,  and  in  which  they  will  justify  the  favour  of  their 
sovereign,  and  the  good  opinion  of  their  fellow-subjects,  ami 
make  them  rejoice  to  see  those  virtuous  characters  that  were 
the  other  day  upon  a  level  with  them  now  exalted  above  them 
in  rank,  but  feeling  with  them  in  sympathy  what  they  felt  in 
common  with  them  before.  We  have  persons  exalted  from  the 
practice  of  the  law,  from  the  place  in  which  they  administered 
high  though  subordinate  justice,  to  a  seat  here,  to  enlighten 
with  their  knowledge,  and  to  strengthen  with  their  votes  those 
principles  which  have  distinguished  the  courts  in  which  they 
have  presided. 

My  Lords,  you  have  here,  also,  the  lights  of  our  religion, — 
you  have  the  Bishops  of  England.  My  Lords,  you  have  that 
true  image  of  the  primitive  Church,  in  its  ancient  form,  in  its 
ancient  ordinances,  purified  from  the  superstitions  and  the  vices 
which  a  long  succession  of  ages  will  bring  upon  the  best  institu- 
tions. You  have  the  representatives  of  that  religion  which  says 
that  their  God  is  love,  that  the  very  vital  spirit  of  their  institu- 
tion is  charity;  a  religion  which  so  much  hates  oppression, 
that,  when  the  God  whom  we  adore  appeared  in  human  form, 
lie  did  not  appear  in  a  form  of  greatness  and  majesty,  but  in 
sympathy  with  the  lowest  of  the  people,  and  thereby  made  it 
a  linn  and  ruling  principle  that  their  welfare  was  the  object  of 
all  government,  since  the  Person  who  was  the  Master  of  Nature 
cho>e  to  appear  Himself  in  a  subordinate  situation.  These  are 
the  considerations  which  influence  them,  which  animate  them, 
and  will  animate  them,  against  all  oppression;  knowing  that 
ITo  who  is  called  first  among  them,  and  first  among  us  all,  both 
of  the  Hock  that  is  fed  and  of  those  who  feed  it,  made  Himself 
"the  servant  of  all." 

My  Lords,  these  are  the  securities  which  we  have  in  all  the 

tituent  parts  of  the  body  of  this  House.    We  know  them, 

we  reckon,  we  rest  upon  them,  and  commit  safely  the  interests 

oil  ndia.and  of  humanity  into  your  hands.    Therefore  it  is  with 

confidence,  that,  ordered  by  the  Commons, 

I  impeach  Warren  Hastings,  Esquire,  of  high  crimes  and 
misdemeanour*. 

I  impeach  him  in  the  name  of  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain 
in  Parliament  assembled,  whose  parliamentary  trust  he  has 
betrayed. 

1  impeach  him  in  the  name  of  all  the  Commons  of  Great 
Britain,  whose  national  character  he  has  dishonoured. 

I  impeach  him  in  the  name  of  the  people  of  India,  whose 


318  BUKKE. 

laws,  rights,  and  liberties  he  has  subverted,  whose  proper- 
ties he  lias  destroyed,  whose  country  he  has  laid  waste  and 
desolate. 

I  impeach  him  in  the  name  and  by  virtue  of  those  eternal 
laws  of  justice  which  he  has  violated. 

I  impeach  him  in  the  name  of  human  nature  itself,  which  he 
has  cruelly  outraged,  injured,  and  oppressed,  in  both  sexes,  in 
every  age,  rank,  situation,  and  condition  of  life. 


JUSTICE  AND  REVENGE.8 

WE  know  from  history  and  the  records  of  this  House,  that  a 
Lord  Bacon  has  been  before  you.  AVlio  is  there  that,  upon 
hearing  ibis  name,  docs  not  instantly  recognize  every  thing  of 
genius  the  most  profound,  every  thing  of  literature  the  most 
extensive,  every  thing  of  discovery  the  most  penetrating,  every 
thing  of  observation  on  human  life  the  most  distinguishing  and 
refined  ?  All  these  must  be  instantly  recognized,  for  they  are 
all  inseparably  associated  with  the  name  of  Lord  Verulam. 
Yet,  when  this  prodigy  was  brought  before  your  Lordships  by 
the  Commons  of  Great  Britain  for  having  permitted  his  menial 
servant  to  receive  presents,  what  was  his  dcmesfhour?  Did  he 
require  his  counsel  not  "to  let  down  the  dignity  of  his  de- 
fence?" No.  That  Lord  Bacon  whose  least  distinction  was, 
that  he  was  a  peer  of  England,  a  Lord  High  Chancellor,  and 
the  son  of  a  Lord  Keeper,  behaved  like  a  man  who  knew  him- 
self, like  a  man  who  was  conscious  of  merits  of  the  highest 
kind,  but  who  was  at  the  same  time  conscious  of  having  fallen 
into  guilt.  The  House  of  Commons  did  not  spare  him.  They 
brought  him  to  your  bar.  They  found  spots  in  that  Sun.  And 
what,  I  again  ask,  was  his  behaviour?  That  of  contrition,  that 
of  humility,  that  of  repentance,  that  which  belongs  to  the 
greatest  men  lapsed  and  fallen  through  human  infirmity  into 
error.  He  did  not  hurl  defiance  at  the  accusations  of  his 
country ;  he  bowed  himself  before  it.  Yet,  with  all  his  peni- 
tence, he  could  not  escape -the  pursuit  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  the  inflexible  justice  of  this  Court.  Your  Lordships 

3  Burke's  "  Speech  in  General  Reply "  occupied  nine  days  in  the  delivery, 
beginning  May  2>,  and  ending  June  16,  1794,  more  than  six  years  after  the  open- 
ing speech.  The  passage  here  given  is  from  the  first  day  of  the  speech  in  reply. 
To  my  sense  it  is  one  of  the  noblest  strains  of  eloquence  in  the  language :  though 
of  course  not  equal  to  the  sublime  conclusion  of  the  whole  speech,  which  comes 
next  in  these  selections  from  Burke. 


JUSTICE  AND   REVENGE.  319 

fined  him  forty  thousand  pounds,  notwithstanding  all  his  merits, 
notwithstanding  his  humility,  notwithstanding  his  contrition, 
notwithstanding  the  decorum  of  his  behaviour,  so  well  suited 
to  a  man  under  the  prosecution  of  the  Commons  of  England 
before  the  Peers  of  England.  You  fined  him  a  sum  fully  equal 
to  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  the  present  day ;  you  im- 
prisoned him  during  the  King's  pleasure ;  and  you  disqualified 
him  for  ever  from  having  a  seat  in  this  House  and  any  office 
in  this  kingdom.  This  is  the  way  in  which  the  Commons 
behaved  formerly,  and  in  which  your  Lordships  acted  formerly, 
•when  no  culprit  at  this  bar  dared  to  hurl  a  recriminatory  accu- 
sation against  his  prosecutors,  or  dared  to  censure  the  language 
in  which  they  expressed  their  indignation  at  his  crimes. 

The  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  following  this  example  and 
fortified  by  it,  abhor  all  compromise  with  guilt  either  in  act  or 
in  language.    They  will  not  disclaim  any  one  wrord  that  they 
have  spoken,  because,  my  Lords,  they  have  said  nothing  abu- 
sive or  illiberal.    We  have  indeed  used,  and  will  again  use, 
such  expressions  as  are  proper  to  portray  guilt.    After  describ- 
ing the  magnitude  of  the  crime,  we  describe  the  magnitude  of 
tin-  criminal.     We  have  declared  him  to  be  not  only  a  public 
robber  himself,   but  the  head  of  a  system  of   robbery,  the 
captain-gen. -ral  of  the  gang,  the  chief  under  whom  a  whole 
predatory  baud  was  arrayed,  disciplined,  and  paid.    In  develop- 
ing such  a  mails  of  criminality,  and  in  describing  a  criminal  of 
such  magnitude  as  we  have  now  brought  before  you,  we  could 
not  use  lenient    epithets   without  compromising    with  crime. 
We  therefore  shall  not  relax  in  our  pursuit  nor  in  our  language. 
Xo,  my  Lords,  no  !  we  shall  not  fail  to  feel  indignation,   wher- 
ever our  moral  nature  has  taught  us  to  feel  it;  nor  shall  we 
hesitate  to  speak  the.  language  which  is  dictated  by  that  indig- 
nation.   Whenever  men  are  oppressed  where  they  ought  to  be 
protected,  we  call  it  tyranny,  and  we  call  the  actor  a  tyrant. 
Whenever  goods  are  taken  by  violence  from  the  possessor,  we 
call  it  a  robbery,  and  the  person  who  takes  it  we  call  a  robber. 
Money  clandestinely  taken  from  the  proprietor  we  call  theft, 
and  the  person  who  takes  it  we  call  a  thief.     When  a  false  pa- 
per is  made  out  to  obtain  money,  we  call  the  act  a  forgery.    The 
steward  who  takes  bribes  from  his  master's  tenants,  and  then, 
nding  the  money  to  be  his  own,  lends  it  to  that  master  and 
takes  bonds  for  it  to  himself,  we  consider  guilty  of  a  breach  of 
trust;  and  the  person  who  commits  such  crimes  we  call  a  cheat, 
a  swindler,  and  a  forger  of  bonds.    All  these  offences,  without 
the  least  softening,  under  all  these  names,  we  charge  upon  this 
num.    We  have  so  charged  in  our  record;  we  have  so  charged  in 
our  speeches  ;  and  we  are  sorry  that  our  language  does  not  fur- 


320  BURKE. 

nish  terms  of  sufficient  force  and  compass  to  mark  the  multi- 
tude, the  magnitude,  aud  the  atrocity  of  his  crimes. 

If  it  should  still  be  asked  why  we  show  sufficient  acrimony  to 
excite  a  suspicion  of  being  in  any  manner  influenced  by  malice 
or  a  desire  of  revenge,  to  this,  my  Lords,  wo  answer,  "Because 
we  would  be  thought  to  know  our  duty,  and  would  have  all  the 
world  know  how  resolutely  we  aiv  determined  to  perform  it." 
The  Commons  of  Great  Britain  are  not  disposed  to  quarrel  with 
the  Divine  wisdom  a,nd  goodness,  which  has  moulded  up  re- 
venge into  the  frame  and  constitution  of  man.  lie  that  lias 
made  us  what  we  are,  has  made  us  at  once  resentful  and  reason- 
able. Instinct  tells  a  man  that  he  ought  to  revenge  an  injury  ; 
reason  tells  him  that  he  ought  not  to  be  a  judge  in  his  own 
cause.  From  that  moment  revenge  passes  from  the  private  to 
the  public  hand;  but  in  being  transferred  it  is  far  from  being 
extinguished.  My  Lords,  it  is  transferred  as  a  sacred  trust,  to 
be  exercised  for  the  injured,  in  measure  and  proportion,  by  per- 
sons who,  feeling  as  lie  feels,  are  in  a  temper  to  reason  better 
than  he  can  reason.  Ilevenge  is  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
original  injured  proprietor,  lest  it  should  be  carried  beyond  the 
bounds  of  moderation  and  justice.  But,  my  Lords,  it  is  in  its 
transfer  exposed  to  a  danger  of  an  opposite  description.  The 
delegate  of  vengeance  may  not  feel  the  wrong  sufficiently;  he 
may  be  cold  and  languid  in  the  performance  of  his  sacred  duty. 
It  is  for  these  reasons  that  good  men  are  taught  to  tremble  even 
at  the  first  emotions  of  anger  and  resentment  for  their  own 
particular  wrongs;  but  they  are  likewise  taught,  if  they  are 
well  taught,  to  give  the  loosest  possible  rein  to  their  resentment 
and  indignation,  whenever  their  parents,  their  friends,  their 
country,  or  their  brethren  of  the  common  family  of  mankind 
are  injured.  Those  who  have  not  such  feelings,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, are  base  and  degenerate.  These,  my  Lords,  are 
the  sentiments  of  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain. 

Lord  Bacon  has  very  well  said  that  "revenge  is  a  kind  of 
wild  justice."  It  is  so  ;  and  without  this  wild,  austere  stock 
there  would  be  no  justice  in  the  world.  But  when,  by  the  skil- 
ful hand  of  morality  and  wise  jurisprudence,  a  foreign  scion, 
but  of  the  very  same  species,  is  grafted  upon  it,  its  harsh  qual- 
ity becomes  changed;  it  submits  to  culture,  and,  laying  aside 
its  savage  nature,  it  bears  fruits  and  flowers,  sweet  to  the  world, 
and  not  ungrateful  even  to  Heaven  itself,  to  which  it  elevates 
its  exalted  head.  The  fruit  of  this  wild  stock  is  revenge  regu- 
lated, but  not  extinguished,— revenue  transferred  from  the  suf- 
fering party  to  the  communion  and  sympathy  of  mankind. 
This  is  the  revenge  by  which  we  are  actuated,  and  which  we 
should  be  sorry  if  the  false,  idle,  girlish,  novel-like  morality  of 


JUSTICE   AND   REVEXGE.  321 

the  world  should  extinguish  in  the  breast  of  us  who  have  a 
great  public  duty  to  perform. 

This  sympathetic  revenge,  which  is  condemned  by  clamorous 
imbecility,  is  so  far  from  being  a  vice,  that  it  is  the  greatest  of 
all  possible  virtues,—  a  virtue  which  the  uncorrupted  judgment 
of  mankind  has  in  all  ages  exalted  to  the  rank  of  heroism.  To 
give  up  all  the  repose  and  pleasures  of  life,  to  pass  sleepless 
nights  and  laborious  days,  and,  what  is  ten  times  more  irksome 
to  an  ingenuous  mind,  to  offer  one's  self  to  calumny  and  all  its 
herd  of  hissing  tongues  and  poisoned  fangs,  in  order  to  free  the 
world  from  fraudulent  prevaricators,  from  cruel  oppressors, 
from  robbers  and  tyrants,  has,  I  say,  the  test  of  heroic  virtue, 
and  well  deserves  such  a  distinction.  The  Commons,  despair- 
ing to  attain  the  heights  of  this  virtue,  never  lose  sight  of  it  for 
a  moment.  For  seventeen  years  they  have,  almost  without  in- 
termission, pursued,  by  every  sort  of  inquiry,  by  legislative  and 
by  judicial  remedy,  the  cure  of  this  Indian  malady,  worse  ten 
thousand  times  than  the  leprosy  which  our  forefathers  brought 
from  the  Ku>t.  Could  they  have  done  this,  if  they  had  not 
been  actuated  by  some  strong,  some  vehement,  some  perennial 
;i,  which,  burning  like,  vestal  lire,  chaste  and  eternal, 
never  suffers  generous  sympathy  to  grow  cold  in  maintaining 
the  rights  of  the  injured,  or  in  denouncing  the  crimes  of  the 
oppressor? 

My  Lords,  the.  Managers  for  the  Commons  have  been  actu- 
ated by  this  passion:  they  feel  its  influence  at  this  moment; 
and,  so  far  from  softening  either  their  measures  or  their  tone, 
the\  do  here,  in  the  presence  of  their  Creator,  of  this  House, 
and  of  the  world,  make  this  solemn  declaration,  and  nuncupate 
this  deliberate  vow:  That  they  will  ever  glow  with  the  most 
determined  and  inextinguishable  animosity  against  tyranny, 
oppression,  and  peculation  iu  all,  but  more  particularly  as  prac- 
tised by  this  man  in  India;  that  they  never  will  relent,  but  will 
pursue  and  prosecute  him  and  it,  till  they  see  corrupt  pride 
prostrate  under  the  feet  of  justice. 


APPEAL  FOIl  JUDGMENT  UPON  HASTINGS. 

MY  LORDS,  in  the  progress  of  this  impeachment,  you  have 
heard  our  charges  ;  you  have  heard  the  prisoner's  plea  of  mer- 
it- ;  yon  have  heard  our  observations  on  them.  In  the  progress 
<>f  this  impeachment,  you  have  seen  the  condition  in  which  Mr. 
J  last  ings  received  Benares  :  you  have  seen  the  condition  in 


322  BURKE. 

•which  Mr.  Hastings  received  the  country  of  the  Itohillas  ;  you 
have  seen  the  condition  in  which  he  received  the  country  of 
Oude ;  you  have  seen  the  condition  in  which  he  received  the 
provinces  of  Bengal ;  you  have  seen  the  condition  of  the  coun- 
try when  the  native  government  was  succeeded  by  that  of  Mr. 
Hastings  ;  you  have  seen  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  all  its 
inhabitants,  from  those  of  the  highest  to  those  of  the  lowest 
rank.  My  Lords,  you  have  seen  the  very  reverse  of  all  this 
under  the  government  of  Mr.  Hastings, — the  country  itself,  all 
its  beauty  and  glory,  ending  in  a  jungle  for  wild  beasts.  You 
have  seen  flourishing  families  reduced  to  implore  that  pity 
which  the  poorest  man  and  the  meanest  situation  might  very 
well  call  for.  You  have  seen  whole  nations  in  the  mass  reduced 
to  a  condition  of  the  same  distress.  These  things  in  his  govern- 
ment at  home.  Abroad,  scorn,  contempt,  and  derision  cast  upon 
and  covering  the  British  name,  war  stirred  up,  and  dishonour- 
able treaties  of  peace  made,  by  the  total  prostitution  of  British 
faith.  Now  take,  my  Lords,  together,  all  the  multiplied  delin- 
quencies which  we  have  proved,  from  the  highest  degree  of 
tyranny  to  the  lowest  degree  of  sharping  and  cheating,  and 
then  judge,  my  Lords,  whether  the  House  of  Commons  could 
rest  for  one  moment,  without  bringing  these  matters,  which 
have  battled  all  legislation  at  various  times,  before  you,  to  try 
at  last  what  judgment  will  do.  Judgment  is  what  gives  force, 
effect,  and  vigour  to  laws:  laws  without  judgment  are  con- 
temptible and  ridiculous  ;  we  had  better  have  no  laws  than  laws 
not  enforced  by  judgments  and  suitable  penalties  upon  delin- 
quents. Revert,  my  Lords,  to  all  the  sentences  which  have 
heretofore  been  passed  by  this  High  Court;  look  at  the  sen- 
tence passed  upon  Lord  Bacon,  look  at  the  sentence  passed 
upon  Lord  Macclesfield  ;  and  then  compare  tho  sentences  which 
your  ancestors  have  given  with  the  delinquencies  which  were 
then  before  them,  and  you  have  the  measure  to  be  taken  in 
your  sentence  upon  the  delinquent  now  before  you.  Your  sen- 
tence, I  say,  will  be  measured  according  to  that  rule  which 
ought  to  direct  the  judgment  of  all  courts  in  like  cases,  lessen- 
ing it  for  a  lesser  offence,  and  aggravating  it  for  a  greater,  until 
the  measure  of  justice  is  completely  full. 

My  Lords,  I  have  done ;  the  part  of  the  Commons  is  con- 
cluded. "With  a  trembling  solicitude  we  consign  this  product  of 
our  long,  long  labours  to  your  charge.  Take  it!— take  it!  It  is 
a  sacred  trust.  Never  before  was  a  cause  of  such  magnitude 
submitted  to  any  human  tribunal. 

My  Lords,  at  this  awful  close,  in  the  name  of  the  Commons, 
and  surrounded  by  them,  I  attest  the  retiring,  I  attest  the  ad- 
vancing generations,  between  which,  as  a  link  in  the  great  chain 


APPEAL   FOR   JUDGMENT   UPON   HASTINGS.  323 

of  eternal  order,  we  stand.  "We  call  this  nation,  we  call  the 
world  to  witness,  that  the  Commons  have  shrunk  from  no  la- 
bour, that  we  have  been  guilty  of  no  prevarication,  that  we  have 
made  no  compromise  with  crime,  that  we  have  not  feared  any 
odium  whatsoever,  in  the  long  warfare  which  we  have  carried 
on  with  the  crimes,  with  the  vices,  with  the  exorbitant  wraith, 
with  the  enormous  and  overpowering  influence  of  Eastern  cor- 
ruption. This  war  we  have  waged  for  twenty-two  years,  and 
the  conflict  has  been  fought  at  your  Lordships'  bar  for  the  last 
seven  years.  My  Lords,  twenty-two  years  is  a  great  space  in 
the  scale  of  the  life  of  man ;  it  is  no  inconsiderable  space  in  the 
history  of  a  great  nation.  A  business  which  has  so  long  occu- 
pied the  councils  and  the  tribunals  of  Great  Britain  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  huddled  over  in  the  course  of  vulgar,  trite,  and  transi- 
tory events.  Xothing  but  some  of  those  great  revolutions  that 
break  the  traditionary  chain  of  human  memory,  and  alter  the 
very  face  of  Xature  itself,  can  possibly  obscure  it.  My  Lords, 
we  are  all  elevated  to  a  degree  of  importance  by  it;  the  mean- 
est of  us  will,  by  means  of  it,  more  or  less  become  the  concern 
of  posterity, —  if  we  are  yet  to  hope  for  such  a  thing,  in  the 
present  state  of  the  world,  as  a  recording,  retrospective,  eivil- 
i/rd  posterity:  but  this  is  in  the  hands  of  the  great  Disposer  of 
events  ;  it  is  not  Ours  to  settle  how  it  shall  be. 

My  Lords,  your  House  yet  stands, — it  stands  as  a  great  edi- 
fice ;  but.  let  me  say  that  it  stands  in  the  midst  of  ruins, —  in  the 
mid>t  of  the  ruins  that  have  been  made  by  the  greatest  moral 
earthquake  that  ever  convulsed  and  shattered  this  globe  of  ours. 
My  Lords,  it  has  pleased  Providence  to  place  us  in  such  a  state, 
that  we  appear  every  moment  to  be  upon  the  verge  of  some 
ureat  mutations.    There  is  one  thing,  and  one  thing  only,  which 
all  mutation,— that  which  existed  before  the  world,  and 
will  survive  the  fabric  of  the  world  itself:  I  mean  justice, —  that 
justice  which,  emanating  from  the  Divinity,  has  a  place  in  the 
of  every  one  of  us,  given  us  for  our  guide  with  regard  to 
ourselves  and  with  regard  to  others,  and  which  will  stand,  after 
:!;!>  globe  is  burned  to  ashes,  our  advocate  or  accuser  before 
•  •at  Judge,  when  He  comes  to  call  upon  us  for  the  tenour 

Of  a  Well-spent  life. 

My  Lords,  the  Commons  will  share  in  every  fate  with  your 
Lordships;  there  is  nothing  sinister  which  can  happen  to  you, 
in  which  we  shall  not  be  involved.  And  if  it  should  so  happen 
that  we  shall  In;  subjected  to  some  of  those,  frightful  changes 
which  we  have  seen  ;  if  it  should  happen  that  your  Lordships, 
stripped  of  all  the  decorous  distinctions  of  human  society, 
should,  by  hands  at  once  huso  and  cruel,  be  led  to  those  scaf- 
folds and  machines  of  murder  upon  which  great  kings  and 


324  BURKE. 

glorious  queens  have  shed  their  blood,  amidst  the  prelates, 
amidst  the  nobles,  amidst  the  magistrates  who  supported  their 
thrones,  may  you  in  those  moments,  i'eel  that  consolation  which 
I  am  persuaded  they  felt  in  the  critical  moments  of  their  dread- 
ful agony  ! 

My  Lords,  there  is  a  consolation,— and  a  great  consolation  it 
is!  —  which  often  happens  to  oppressed  virtue  and  fallen  dig- 
nity. It  often  happens  that  the  very  oppressors  and  persecu- 
tors themselves  are  forced  to  bear  testimony  in  its  favour.  I 
do  not  like  to  go  for  instances  a  great  way  back  into  antiquity. 
I  know  very  well  that  length  of  time  operates  so  as  to  give  an 
air  of  the  fabulous  to  remote  events,  which  lessens  the  interest 
and  weakens  the  application  of  examples.  I  wish  to  come 
nearer  the  present  time.  Your  Lordships  know  and  have 
heard  (for  which  of  us  lias  not  known  and  heard?)  of  the  Par- 
liament of  Paris.  The  Parliament  of  Paris  had  an  origin  very, 
very  similar  to  that  of  the  great  Court  before  which  J  stand; 
the  Parliament  of  Paris  continued  to  have  a  great  resemblance 
to  it  in  its  constitution,  even  to  its  fall.  The  Parliament  of 
Paris,  my  Lords,  WAS;  it  is  gone!  It  has  passed  away;  it 
has  vanished  like  a  dream!  It  fell,  pierced  by  the  sword  of 
the  Comte  de  Mirabeau.  And  yet  I  will  say  that  that  man,  at 
the  time  of  his  inflicting  the  death-wound  of  that  Parliament, 
produced  at  once  the  shortest  and  the  grandest  funeral  oration 
that  ever  was  or  could  be  made  upon  the  departure  of  a  mvat 
court  of  magistracy.  Though  he  had  himself  smarted  under  its 
lash,  as  every  one  knows  who  knows  his  history,  (and  he  was 
elevated  to  dreadful  notoriety  in  history.1)  yet,  when  he  pro- 
nounced the  death-sentence  upon  that  Parliament,  and  indicted 
the  mortal  wound,  he  declared  that  his  motives  for  doing  it 
were  merely  political,  and  that  their  hands  were  as  pure  as 
those  of  justice  itself,  which  they  administered.  A  great  and 
glorious  exit,  my  Lords,  of  a  great  and  glorious  body!  And 
never  was  an  eulogy  pronounced  upon  a  body  more  deserved. 
They  were  persons,  in  nobility  of  rank,  in  amplitude  of  fortune, 
in  weight  of  authority,  in  depth  of  learning,  inferior  to  few  of 
those  that  hear  me.  My  Lords,  it  was  but  the  other  day  that 
they  submitted  their  necks  to  the  axe  ;  but  their  honour  was 
unwounded.  Their  enemies,  the  persons  who  sentenced  them 
to  death,  were  lawyers  full  of  subtlety,  they  were  enemies  full 
of  malice  ;  yet,  lawyers  full  of  subtlety,  and  enemies  full  of 
malice,  as  they  wrere,  they  did  not  dare  to  reproach  them  with 
having  supported  the  wealthy,  the  great,  and  powerful,  and  of 
having  oppressed  the  weak  and  feeble,  in  any  of  their  judg- 
ments, or  of  having  perverted  justice,  in  any  one  instance 
whatever,  through  favour,  through  interest*  or  cabal. 


APPEAL  FOR   JUDGMENT   UPON   HASTINGS.  325 

My  Lords,  if  you  must  fall,  may  you  so  fall !  But  if  you 
stand,— and  stand  I  trust  you  will,  together  with  the  fortune 
of  this  ancient  monarchy,  together  with  the  ancient  laws  and 
liberties  of  this  great  and  illustrious  kingdom, — may  you  stand 
as  unimpeached  in  honour  as  in  power!  May  you  stand,  not 
as  a  substitute  for  virtue,  but  as  an  ornament  of  virtue,  as  a 
security  for  virtue!  May  you  stand  long,  and  long  stand  the 
terror  of  tyrants !  May  you  stand  the  refuge  of  afflicted  nations ! 
May  you  stand  a  sacred  temple,  for  the  perpetual  residence  of 
an  inviolable  justice!  —  Conclusion  of  Speech  in  reply. 


THE  vigorous  and  laborious  class  of  life  has  lately  got,  from 
the  bon  ton  of  the  humanity  of  this  day,  the  name  of  the  labour- 
ing poor.  We  have  heard  of  many  plans  for  the  relief  of  "the 
labouring  poor."  This  puling  jargon  is  not  as  innocent  as  it  is 
foolish.  In  meddling  with  great  affairs,  weakness  is  never  in- 
noxious. Hitherto  the  name  of  poor  (in  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
used  to  excite  compassion)  has  not  been  used  for  those  who  can, 
but  for  those  who  cannot,  labour, —  for  the  sick  and  infirm,  for 
orphan  infancy,  for  languishing  and  decrepit  age  :  but  when  wo 
affect  to  pity,  as  poor,  those  who  must  labour  or  the  v/orld  can- 
not exist,  we  are  trifling  with  the  condition  of  mankind.  It  is 
the  common  doom  of  man  that  he  must  eat  his  bread  by  the 
sweat  of  his  brow,  that  is  by  the  sweat  of  his  body,  or  the  sweat 
of  his  mind.  If  this  toil  was  inflicted  as  a  curse,  it  is,— as  might 
be  expected  from  the  curses  of  the  Father  of  bless  ings, —it  is 
tempered  with  many  alleviations,  many  comforts.  Every  at- 
tempt to  fly  from  it,  and  to  refuse  the  very  terms  of  our  exist- 
ence, becomes  much  more  truly  a  curse,  and  heavier  pains  and 
penalties  fall  upon  those  who  would  elude  the  tasks  which  are 
put  upon  them  by  the  great  Master  Workman  of  the  world, 
who,  in  His  dealings  with  His  creatures,  sympathizes  with  their 
weakness,  and,  speaking  of  a  creation  wrought  by  mere  will  out 
of  nothing,  speaks  of  six  days  of  labour  and  one  otrcst.  I  do 
not  call  a  healthy  young  man,  cheerful  in  his  mind  and  vigorous 
in  hi>  arms,  I  cannot  call  such  a  man  poor;  I  cannot  pity  my 
kind  as  a  kind,  merely  because  they  are  men.  This  affected  pity 
only  tends  to  dissatisfy  them  with  their  condition,  and  to  teach 
k  resources  where  no  resources  are  to  be  found,  in 
.-tiling  els«>  than  their  own  industry,  and  frugality,  and  so- 
briety. Whatever  maybe  the  intention  (which,  because  I  do 
not  know,  I  cannot  dispute)  of  those  who  would  discontent 
mankind  by  this  strange  pity,  they  act  towards  us,  in  the  conse- 
quences, as  if  they  were  our  worst  enemies. 


DANIEL   WEBSTER: 

SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE. 


DAM  EL  WELTER,  the  great  Statesman  of  America,  was  born  in  the 
town  of  Salisbury,  New  Hampshire,  on  the  18th  of  January,  1782.  The 
part  of  Salisbury  in  \vliich  he  first  sa\v  the  light  has  since  been  set  off  as  a 
separate,  town,  with  the  name  of  Franklin.  His  father,  Kbene/.er  Web-ter, 
served  large! v,  both  as  a  soldier  and  an  officer,  in  the  Revolutionary  war, 
and  distinguished  himself  in  the  battle  of  Bennington.  lie  was  also  in  the 
service-  at  White  1'lains,  and  at  West  Point  when  Arnold  attempted  to  sur- 
render that  post.  lh>  Avas  twice  married,  and  each  marriage  gave  him  live 
children.  Daniel  being  the  youngest  but  one  of  the  ten.  Exekiel,  the  brother 
whom  he  loved  most  deeplv,  was  the  next  before  him;  bora  on  the  llth  of 
April,  17SO. 

During  his  childhood,  Daniel  was  sickly  and  delicate,  giving  no  promise 
of  the  robust  and  vigorous  frame  which  he  had  in  his  manhood.  In  his 
Aiito'ii<rjr<iphi/,  written  for  a  private  friend  in  182'.),  though  extending  only 
to  1S17,  lie  says  he  does  not  remember  when  or  by  whom  lie  was  taught  to 
read  ;  and  that  he  cannot  recollect  a  time  when  he  could  not  read  the  Dible. 
His  father  had  no  literary  education,  save  what  he  picked  up  for  him>elf  in 
the  course  of  a  straitened  and  toilsome  life;  but  he  had  a  mind  strong  and 
healthy  by  nature,  insomuch  that  he  became  a  sort  of  intellectual  leader  in 
the  neigh boWhood.  And  he  seemed  to  have  no  higher  aim  in  life  than  to 
educate  his  children  to  the  utmost  of  his  limited  ability.  The  only  means 
within  his  reach  were  the  small  town  schools,  which  were  kept  by  indifferent 
teachers,  in  several  neighbourhoods  of  the  town,  each  a  small  part  of  the 
year.  To  these  schools  Daniel  was  sent  with  the  other  children.  When 
the  school  was  near  by,  it  was  easy  to  attend;  but  sometimes  he  had  to  go. 
in  Winter,  two  and  a  half  or  three  miles,  still  living  at  home  ;  at  other  times, 
when  the  school  was  further  off,  his  father  boarded  him  out  in  a  neighbour- 
ing family,  that  he  might  still  attend  ;  and  something  of  special  pains  were 
used  for  him  in  this  behalf,  because  "  the  slendernessand  frailty"  of  his  con- 
stitution were  not  thought  likely  ever  to  admit  of  his  pursuing  anv  robust 
occupation.  Nothing  but  read  in  2:  and  writing  was  taught  in  these  schools  ; 
and  writing  was  so  irksome  to  him,  that  the  masters  used  to  tell  him  they 
feared,  after  all,  his  lingers  ww  destined  for  the  plough-tail. 

In  his  early  boyhood.  Webster  was  fond  of  poetry,  and  could  repeat,  from 
memory,  the  greater  part  of  Watts's  Psalms  and  Hymns,  at  the  a  ire  of  twelve. 
In  his  Autobiography,  we  have  the  following:  •"',!  remember  that  my  father 
brought  home  from  some  of  the  lower  towns  Pope's  Essay  on  Mw,  pub- 
lished in  a  sort  of  pamphlet.  I  took  it,  and  very  soon  could  repeat  it.  from 
beginning  to  end.  We  had  so  few  books,  that  to  read  them  once  or  twice 
was  nothing.  We  thought  thev  were  all  to  be  got  bv  heart."  II 
tells  us  that,  till  his  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  year,  he  read  what  he  could 
get  to  read,  went  to  school  when  he  could;  and,  when  not  at  school,  was  ;i 
fanner's  youngest  boy,  not  good  for  much,  for  want  of  health  and  strength, 
but  was  expected  to  do  something.  Up  to  that  time,  lie  had  no  hope  of  any 
education  beyond  what  the  village  school  could  afford.  Putt  in  May,  17%. 
his  father  plaeed  him  in  Phillips  Academy  at  Exeter.  I  quote  again  from 

320  * 


SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE.  327 

his  Autobiography :  "  I  believe  I  made  tolerable  progress  in  most  branches 
which  I  attended  to,  while  in  this  school ;  but  there  was  one  thing  I  could 
not  do :  I  could  not  make  a  declamation.  Many  a  piece  did  I  commit  to 
memory,  and  recite  and  rehearse,  in  my  own  room,  over  and  over  again  ; 
yet,  when  the  day  came,  when  the  school  collected  to  hear  declamations, 
when  my  name  was  called,  and  I  saw  all  eyes  turned  to  my  scat,  I  could 
not  raise  myself  from  it.  Sometimes  the  instructors  frowned,  sometimes 
thev  smiled.  When  the  occasion  was  over,  I  went  home  and  wept  bitter 
tears  of  mortification." 

He  remained  at  Exeter  only  nine  months.  In  February,  1797,  his  father 
placed  him  with  the  Rev.  Samuel  Wood,  the  minister  of  the  adjoining  town 
of  IJoscawcn  ;  and  while  on  the  way  thither  first  disclosed  to  him  his  pur- 
pose of  sending  him  to  college.  "  The  very  idea,"  savs  he,  "thrilled  mv 
whole  frame.  I  remember  that  I  was  quite  overcome.  The  thing  appeared 
to  me  so  hi^h,  the  expense  and  sacrifice  it  was  to  cost  my  father  so  great, 
I  could  only  press  his  hand  and  shed  tears.  Excellent,  excellent  parent! 
I  cannot  think  of  him,  even  now,  without  turning  child  again."  Among 
the  books  which  he  found  at  Hoscawcn  was  Don  Quixote.  "  I  began  to  read 
it,"  says  he,  "and  it  is  literally  true  that  I  never  closed  my  eyes  till  I  had 
finished  it;  nor  did  I  lay  it  down  for  five  minutes;  so  great  was  the  power 
of  that  extraordinary  book  on  my  imagination." 

In  August,  1707,  \Vebster  entered  Dartmouth  College.  His  chief  dis- 
tinction while  in  college  was  in  studies  outside  the  regular  course  :  in  writing 
and  in  debate  he  excelled  all  the  rest  of  his  class,  and  was  a  general  favourite 
with  the  students  ;  withal,  he  was  a  fair  scholar  within  the  prescribed  studies, 
and  was  verv  punctual  in  his  attendance  on  all  the  exercise-;.  "  Mv  college, 
life,"  says  he,  "  was  not  an  idle  one.  Besides  the  regular  attendance  on  lire- 
scribed  duties  and  studies,  I  read  something  of  English  history  and  English 
literature.  Perhaps  my  reading  was  too  miscellaneous.  I  even  paid  my 
board  for  a  year  bv  superintending  a  little  weeklv  newspaper,  and  making 
selections  for  it  from  books  of  literature,  and  from  the  contemporary  pub- 
lications. I  suppose  I  sometimes  wrote  a  foolish  paragraph  myself.  While 
in  college  I  delivered  two  or  three  occasional  addresses,  which  were  published. 
I  trust  they  are  forgotten  :  they  were  in  very  bad  taste.  I  had  not  then 
learned  that  all  true  power  in  writing  is  in  the  idea,  not  in  the  stvlc ;  an 
error  into  which  the  Am  r/icfnrfrn,  as  it  is  usually  taught,  nriv  easily  lead 
stronger  heads  than  mine."  Among  his  class-mates  with  whom  he  kept  up 
a  correspondence  during  his  life,  was  my  own  excellent  pastor,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Thomas  A.  Merrill,  of  Middlebury.  Vermont;  who,  writing  in  18.V5,  after 
Webster's  death,  relates  a  passage  that  happilv  illustrates  the,  power  of  \Vcb- 
srer  at  that  time.  It  appears  that,  in  his  junior  year,  Webster  read  a  poem 
on  a  battle  between  an  English  and  a  French  man-of-war,  in  which  the  latter 
"k.  Dr.  Merrill  writes  that,  it  "  held  the  professor  and  the  class  in 
apparent  amazement.  I  almost  shudder  as,  fifty-four  years  alter,  I  seem 
•lie,  French  ship  go  down,  and  to  hear  her  cannon  continue  to  roar 
till  she  is  absolutely  submerged." 

Webster  went  through  the  regular  four  years'  course,  and  graduated  in 

Aairn^t,  1801.     His  character  at  that  time  is  described   by  his  biographer, 

!'.  Curtis,  as  follows  :  "  His  faculty  for  labour  was  something 

prodigious,  his  memory  disciplined  by  methods  not  tauirht  him  by  others, 

and  his  intellect  was  expanded  far  beyond  his  years.     He  was  abstemious, 

religious*  of  the  highest  sense  of  honour,  and  of  the  most  elevated  deport- 

IHs  manners  were,  genial,  his  affections  warm,  his  conversation  was 

brilliant  and  instructive,  his  temperament  cheerful,  his  gavetv  overflowing." 

Nothing  like  justice-  can  be  (lone  to  Webster's  nobleness  of  character, 
without  sour-  rel-reiice  to  what  took  place;  be, ween  him  and  his  brother 
Kzekiel.  Their  father's  plan  was,  that  Ex.ekiel  should  stay  at  home,  and 
cany  on  the  farm,  and  that  Daniel  should  be  educated  for  one  of  the  learned 


328  WEBSTER. 

professions.  But,  in  his  Sophomore  year,  as  Daniel  saw  the  wide  gulf  that 
was  to  open  between  himself  and  his  elder  brother,  his  heart  was  moved. 
He  could  not  boar  to  have  it  so.  He  thought  Kzckicl's  talents  to  !>.•  : 
us  his  own  ;  and  his  h  'art  yearned  to  have  him  blest  with  equal  advantage-. 
So,  after  consulting  with  his  brother,  he  b"okc  the  matter  to  his  father,  then 
aged,  infirm,  and  embarrassed  in  his  affairs.  lie  would  keep  school,  lie 
would  get  along  as  he  could,  he  would  be  more  than  four  years  in  goi  'g 
through  college,  if  need  were,  that  his  brother  too  might  be  sent  to  s-udy. 
Th'j  result  was,  that  Kzckicl  soon  went  to  preparing  for  college ;  and  he 
entered  Dartmouth  in  March,  1801,  just  six  months  before  Daniel  grad- 
uated. Meanwhile  Daniel  worked  on  the  small  newspaper  already  men- 
tioned, and  paid  his  board,  thus  saving  so  much  for  his  brother  :  he  also 
taught  school  during  the  winter  vacation,  and  gave  his  earnings  to  the  same 
purpose. 

On  leaving  college  in  August,  1801,  Webster  returned  to  his  father's 
house,  and  soon  began  the  study  of  the  law  with  Thomas  W.  Thompson, 
E-q.,  his  father's  neighbour  and  friend.  He  had  spent  four  months  in  this 
study,  when,  the  family  getting  more  straitened  than  ever,  duty  and  affec- 
tion pressed  him  to  undertake  something  for  their  relief.  Having  been 
offered  the  charge  of  an  academv  in  Frveburg,  Maine,  he  bought  a  hor>e 
for  S-Jfi.OO,  and,  with  his  saddle-bags  stuffed,  set  out  for  the  place.  lie  en- 
gaged for  six  months,  at  the  rate  of  $350.00  a-vcar.  lie  went  to  board  in 
the  family  of  .lames  ( >si:ood,  Esq.,  registrar  of  deeds  for  the  county  of  <  Ox- 
ford. Rather  than  copy  the  deeds  himself,  Mr.  Osgood  preferred  to  pay 
twenty-five  cents  a-piccc  for  the  copying  of  them;  and  Webster  gladiy 
availed  himself  of  the  chance,  and  thus  earned  enough  to  pav  his  board. 
I  quote  from  his  Autobiography  :  "  In  May,  1802,  having  a  weed's  vacation, 
I  took  my  quarter's  salary,  mounted  a  horse,  went  straight  over  the  hills 
to  Hanover,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  putting  these  earnings  into  my 
brother's  hands  for  his  college  expenses.  Having  enjoyed  this  hi-j;h  pleas- 
ure, I  hied  me  back  again  to  my  school  and  my  copying  of  deeds."  There 
be^an  his  friendship  with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Osgood,  son  of  the  regis- 
trar, who  wrote  of  him  long  afterwards  as  follows:  "  He  was  grcatlv  be- 
loved by  all  who  knew  him.  He  was  punctual  in  his  attendance  upon 
public  worship,  and  ever  opened  his  school  with  prayer.  I  never  heard 
him  use  a  profane  word,  and  never  saAV  him  lose  his  temper." 

At  the  end  of  the  six  mouths,  Webster  gave  up  his  school,  though  a 
liberal  increase  of  sa'arv  was  offered  him  if  he  would  stav  ;  the  earnest  de- 
sire of  his  father,  the  advice  of  other  friends,  and  his  own  inclination  draw- 
ing him  back  to  the  law.  He  resumed  his  place  in  Mr.  Thompson's  office, 
and  continued  there  till  March,  1S04,  applying  himself  diligently  to  his 
legal  studies,  but  at  the  same  time  keeping  up  and  extending  his  inter- 
course with  the  springs  of  more  liberal  culture.  Poor  as  he  was,  and  much 
as  he  craved  the  speed v  returns  of  productive  work,  still  he  could  not  cn- 
tirelv  withhold  himself  from  those  elegant  studies  which  bring  in  their 
immediate  riches  to  the  mind  alone. 

Webster  now  felt  a  strong  desire  to  finish  his  studies  in  Boston.  His 
brother  Ezckicl,  after  a  hard  struggle,  had  at  length  found  employment  as 
teacher  of  a  private  school  in  that  city;  and  he  had  eight  scholars  in  Latin 
and  Greek,  whom  he  would  have  to  dismiss,  unless  he  had  an  assistant. 
He  strongly  urged  Daniel  to  come  to  Boston,  assuring  him  of  enough  to 
pav  his  board  by  teaching  an  hour  and  a  half  a-day.  So,  in  July,  1S04,  to 
Boston  he  came,  lie  was  so  fortunate  as  to  find"  a  place  in  the  office  of 
Christopher  (lore,  a  man  eminent  both  in  and  out  of  his  profession,  and 
who  afterwards  became  governor  of  Massachusetts.  It  was  in  this  way  : 
hearing  that  Mr  Gore  wanted  a  clerk,  he  got  a  stranger  to  introduce  him. 
He  told  his  story  with  a  modest  but  manly  air,  and  was  heard  with  encour- 
aging good-nature.  He  mentioned  some  of  his  acquaintances  in  New 


SKETCH   OF  HIS  LIFE.  329 

Hampshire,  and  among  them  one  who  had  been  Mr.  Gore's  class-mate. 
When  he  rose  to  depart,  Mr.  Gore  spoko  to  him  as  follows :  "  My  young 
friend,  you  look  as  though  you  might  be  trusted.  You  say  you  came  to 
study,  and  not  to  wa^tc  time.  I  will  take  you  at  your  word'.  You  may 
as  well  hang  up  your  hat  at  once  ;  go  into  the  other  loom;  take  your  hook, 
and  sit  down  to  reading  it,  and  write  at  your  convenience  to  New  Hamp- 
shire for  your  letters." 

In  August,  1804,  Ezckicl  was  under  the  necessity  of  going  to  Hanover  to 
take  his  degree.  During  his  absence,  Daniel  took  charge  of  his  school. 
Edward  Everett  was  at  that  time  one  of  the  pupils;  and  there  began  the 
life-long  friendship  of  the  two  men. 

Webster's  father  hud  for  several  years  held  the  office  of  "  side-judge,"  as 
it  was  called,  in  Ilillsborough  county,  a  place  of  considerable  influence  and 
importance  in  tho>c  days.  In  1804,  the  clerkship  in  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas  there  became  vacant,  and  the  place  was  offered  to  Webster,  with 
$1500.00  a-ycar.  This  was  indeed  a  tempting  prize;  it  offered,  both  for 
him<elf  ami  the  family,  immediate  relief  and  supply,  and  he  had  no 
thought  but  to  accept.  lie  laid  the  matter  before  Mr.  Gore,  who  earnestly 
advised  him  to  decline.  "Go  on,"  said  he,  "and  finish  your  studies:  you 
arc  poor  enough,  but  there  are  greater  evils  than  poverty  ;  live  on  no  man's 
favour;  what  bread  von  do  cat,  let  it  be  the  bread  of  independence ;  pur- 
sue your  profesMon.  make  yourself  useful  to  your  friends,  and  a  little  for- 
midable to  your  enemies,  and  you  have  nothing  to  fear."  The  result  was, 
that  Webster  declined  the  place,  to  the  great  disappointment  indeed  of  his 
father,  who,  however,  had  by  this  time  grown  to  have  so  much  faith  in 
him,  that  he  soon  acquiesced. 

In  March.  1805,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Gore,  Webster  was  admitted  to  prac- 
tice in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  in  Boston.  He  soon  returned  to  his 
native  State,  and  opened  an  office  in  the  town  of  Boscawen.  There  he  re- 
mained two  years  and  a  half,  his  practice  extending  over  the  three  conn- 
tics.  Ilillsborough,  Rockingham,  and  Grafton,  and  his  income  amounting 
to  MX  or  seven  hundred  a-ycar.  Of  course  his  mind  outgrew  the  field. 
So,  in  the  Fall  of  1807,  he  gave  up  his  law  business  there  to  E/ekiel,  and 
removed  to  Portsmouth,  having  been  admitted  as  a  counsellor  of  the  Supe- 
rior Court  in  May  preceding.  In  June,  1803,  he  was  married  to  Miss 
•  ii.ire  Fletcher,  daughter  of  the  llev.  Elijah  Fletcher,  of  llopkinton,  New 
Hampshire.  At  the  1'ort.sinoiith  Bar,  he  came  in  contact  with  Jeremiah 
Mason,  who  was  his  senior  by  fourteen  years,  and  probably  the  ablest  law- 
yer then  in  New  England.  "From  that  time  onward,  the  two  men  were 
wont  to  1)0  employed  as  opposing  counsel  in  the  same  causes.  But  they 
had  a  cordial  respect  for  each  other:  Mason  confessed  that  he  found  his 
match  in  Webster;  he  was  just  the  man  to  wrestle  Webster's  great  powers 
forth  into  full  development;  and  they  grew  into  a  fast  friendship  which 
ended  only  with  the  death  of  Mason  in  1848. 

Up  to  this  time,  Webster,  it  appears,  had  not  given  his  mind  verv  much 
to  political  questions.  He  had  learned  his  polities  in  the  old  Federal 
school,  Washington,  Hamilton,  and  Marshall  being  his  chief  teachers  and 
models.  His  father,  too,  clung  to  the  same  political  faith,  as  did  also  Gore, 
>\\,  and  other  of  his  friends;  and,  say  what  wo  will,  th'J  Federalists  of 
that  day  were  the  purest,  wisest,  noblest  political  party  this  country  has 
Web-ter  continued,  substantially,  in  the  same  creed,  held  fast 
to  the  same  principles  of  government,  to  the  end  of  his  career.  Hence,  in 
p:irt,  his  profound  reverence  for  our  National  Constitution  ;  hence,  his  at- 
tachment, deep  as  life,  to  the  Union  which  it  compacted.  But  he  wa-i  too 
large  and  too  wi>,c  a  man  to  b^  cooped  up  within  any  formal  lines  of  pol- 
icy ;  his  mind  was  too  far-sighted  and  too  well-poised  not  to  admit  the 
force  of  circumstances  in  modifying  the  application  of  principles;  too 
statesman-like,  in  short,  to  sacrifice  tho  spirit  of  his  creed  to  its  letter. 


330  WEBSTER. 

The  wars  and  revolutions  in  Europe,  together  with  the  controversies  which 
grew  out  of  them  to  our  own  government,  now  forced  his  thoughts,  in  a 
manner,  into  the  channel  of  political  questions.  In  common  with  the 

other  Federalists.  he  was  utterly  opposed  to  the  famous  embargo  law  of 
1807;  and,  as  he  had  a  most  cordial  and  righteous  hatred  of  Napoleon  and 
his  doings,  he  was,  to  say  the  lea-t,  very  slow  to  admit  the  ncces.-ity  of  a 
war  with  (Jreat  Britain  in  1812.  Howbeit,  he  was  nominated  n  Represent- 
ative to  the  Thirteenth  Congress,  was  elected,  and  took  his  scut  in  Mav, 
1813.  Not  long  after,  Mr.  Mason  was  elected  to  the  National  Senate.  Of 
Webster's  course  at  Washington,  the  shortness  of  this  SL->t<-h  does  not 
allow  me  to  speak  in  detail  ;  sulliee  it  to  say  that  he  soon  became  a  man  of 
decided  mark  :  Congress  then  nUmnded  in  able  men,  Clay  and  Calhoun 
being  chief  among  them;  and  Webster  at  once  took  rank  with  the  a' 
lie  continued  to  represent  the  Rockingham  district  till  March,  1817. 
Meanwhile  he  had  broken  awav  from  Portsmouth,  and  removed  to  Boston, 
where  he  now  entered  upon  a  career  of  great  professional  distinction  :  busi- 
ness flowed  in  upon  him.  and  his  income  soon  rose  to  twenty  thousand 
a-year.  While  in  Congress,  he  had  been  admitted  to  practice  in  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States,  lie  had  ma*iy  engagements  there,  and 
in  February,  181<».  he  made  his  great  argument  in  the  famous  Dartmouth 
College  case.  This  set  the  seal  to  his  lame  as  an  advocate;  and  thence- 
forth he  would  have  been  regarded  as  a  great,  a  very  great  lawyer,  but  that 
he  was  so  much  greater  as  a  statesman. 

In  18:20,  Webster  was  elected  to  the  State  Convention  for  revising  the 
Constitution  of  Ma<>aclinsett>.  and  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  he  was 
the  leading  member  of  that  body.  Some  two  years  later,  Boston  insisted 
on  having  him  for  her  representative  in  Congress  :  he  was  elected  accord- 
ingly, and  took  his  seat  in  December,  182'5.  and  continued  to  serve  in  that 
portion  till  he  was  elected  to  the  Senate,  in  which  body  lie  took  his  scat 
on  the  4th  of  March.  1827. 

Before  his  removal  to  Portsmouth,  his  father  had  died  ;  and  before  the 
end  of  18J7  .Mrs.  Webster  died,  having  borne  him  five  children,  two  of 
whom  had  also  died  before  their  mother.  In  April,  1829,  death  fell  sud- 
denly upon  his  brother  K/.ekiel  in  the  court-room  at  Conconl.  New  Hamp- 
shire, while  lie  was  addressing  the  jury.  In  December  following,  Webster, 
having  been  held  some  time  in  New  York  bv  professional  engagements, 
was  there  married  to  Miss  Caroline  Le  Roy,  an  intelligent  and  accom- 
plished ladv,  who  survived  him. 

We  now  approach  the  time  when  the  country  was  made  to  understand 
the  full  measure  of  Webster's  greatness  as  a  Senator  and  a  statesman.  lie 
•had  indeed  been  all  the  while  steadily  advancing  in  reputation  and  in- 
fluence, but  still  the  people  had  not  fairlv  begun  to  know  what  a  man  he 
was.  On  the  2Gth  of  January,  1830,  lie  made  his  speech  in  reply  to 
llayne.  As  it  was  generally  known  at  Washington  that  he  had  the  floor 
for  that  day,  the  Senate-chamber  was  crowded  to  its  utmost  capacity. 
The  Speaker  was  left  alone  in  the  other  House  of  Congress.  A  great 
many  ladies  were  present,  and  not  an  inch  of  standing-room  was  unoccu- 
pied. The  whole  assemblage  were  held  in  wonder  and  astonishment  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end.  Of  the  speech  itself,  I  can  but  say  that  it  made 
n  deeper  impression  than  any  speech  ever  before  delivered  on  this  conti- 
nent. It  was  printed  in  all  the  newspapers;  it  was  circulated  in  pamphlet 
form  ;  it  was  read  evcrvwhere  ;  and  it  carried  all  before  it  wherever  it  was 
read.  In  short,  it  marks  a  new  era  in  the  political  education  of  the  Ameri- 
can people. 

Webster's  labours  in  the  Senate  for  several  years  were  very  much  occu- 
pied with  questions  touching  the  currency.     The  science,  or  the  hush 
of  finance  had  long  been  a  special  study  with  him,  and  he  had  made  him- 
self u  thorough  muster  of  that  most  intricate  and  difficult  branch  of  states- 


SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE.  331 

manship.  His  strong,  cool,  comprehensive  intellect  was  eminently  suited 
to  the  subject;  and  as  a  financier  he  has  had  no  equal,  probably  no  second, 
in  this  country,  with  the  one  exception  of  Hamilton.  General  Jackson 
came  to  the  presidency  in  March,  1829.  He  was  a  man  of  very  strong 
character,  but  no  statesman.  With  a  heart  full  of  patriotic  ardour,  he 
united  a  hasty,  impetuous,  despotic  temper;  and  he  was  immensely  popu- 
lar. Mr.  Van  Burcn  soon  gained  a  decided  .ascendency  in  his  councils: 
a  man  rather  diminutive  in  stature,  and  of  so  much  political  adroitness, 
that  he  came  to  be  generally  distinguished  as  "  the  little  magician. "  For 
some  cause  or  other,  the  President  undertook  a  grand  "  experiment"  upon 
the  financial  institutions  of  the  country  ;  as  a  part  of  his  scheme  he  went 
to  war  against  the  Bank  of  the  United  States;  and  in  carrying  on  that 
war  he  hit  upon  the  principle  of  administering  the  Constitution  as  he  un- 
derstood it,  and  not  as  law,  usage,  precedent,  and  judicial  decision  had  set- 
tled its  meaning  and  interpretation.  The  charter  of  the  hank  was  to 
expire  in  1836,  and  in  1832  Congress  passed,  by  decided  majorities,  a  hill 
.renewing  its  charter  for  twenty  years.  The  President  vetoed  the  bill; 
and,  as  it  could  not  command  the  requisite  two  thirds  in  both  Houses,  it 
failed  to  become  a  law.  In  the  Fall  of  1833,  he  "  assumed  the  responsi- 
bility" of  removing  the  public  deposits  from  the  bank,  where  they  had 
been  placed  by  law,  and  of  assigning  them  to  the  keeping  of  such  State 
banks  as  he  chose,  without  waiting  for  any  law  on  the  subject.  These  two 
measures  laid  the  bank  upon  its  death-bed.  The  experiment  stood  upon 
the  promise  of  a  better  currency  than  the  nation  had  ever  seen  :  its  speedy 
eft'ect  was  to  throw  the  whole  currency  and  commerce  of  the  country  into 
utter  confusion  and  disorder.  Business  everywhere  literally  went  to 
smash.  As  time  wore  on,  the  experiment  proved,  in  every  respect,  a  most 
disastrous  and  ignominious  failure,  spreading  ruin  and  distress  wherever 
it  planted  its  foot.  All  this  Webster  had  foreseen  and  foretold;  but  then, 
as  afterwards,  "his  was  the  wise  man's  ordinary  lot,  to  prophesy  to  ears 
that  would  not  hear." 

In  March,  1834,  the  Senate,  passed  a  resolution  censuring  the  removal  of 
the  deposits.  The  President  visited  them  with  a  long  Protest  against  that 
censure.  The  Protest  was  bristling  with  new  and  startling  theories  and 
pretensions  of  Presidential  prerogative  ;  and  it  drew  from  Webster  one  of 
the  best  speeches  he  ever  made.  As  the  speech  is  given  entire  in  this  vol- 
ume, I  need  say  no  more  of  it  here  than  that  (Jovernor  Ta/.cwell,  of  Vir- 
ginia, a  very  eminent  statesman  of  that  day,  but  differing  from  Webster  in 
most  of  his  political  views,  was  so  much  delighted  with  it,  that  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Tyler  requesting  him  to  thank  Webster  in  his  behalf,  and  adding 
words  If  it  is  published  in  pamphlet  form,  beg  him  to  send  me  one. 
I  will  have  it  bound  in  good  Russia  leather,  and  leave  it  as  a  special  leg- 
acy to  my  children." 

During  these,  years,  in  Webster's  judgment,  the  Constitution  was  hardly 
in  less  danger  from  executive  encroachment  than  from  local  nullification  ; 
a;:d  he  was  constantly  standing  in  its  defence,  and  dealing  his  hardest 
blows  against  its  assailants  on  the  one  side  or  on  the  other.  But  all  this 
while  he  was  training  and  educating  the  national  mind  into  right  consti- 
tutional views,  and  at  the  same  time  ensouling  the  people  with  the  right 
patriotic  spirit,  for  maintaining  the  Constitution  through  the  dreadful 
crisis  of  secession  and  civil  war. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  removal  aforesaid,  the  opposition  were  known  as 
the  National  Kcpiibliean  party.  From  the  alarming  strides  of  executive 
power,  they  now  took  the,  name  of  "  Whigs,"  and  Webster  began  to  be 
talked  of  for  the  I're.-idency.  From  that  time  onward,  his  aspirations  no 
doubt  looked  to  that  olliec.  Most  certainly  he  was  ambitions  of  the  Presi- 
Indeed  he  had  aright  to  he;  but  he  never  did  anv  thing  unbe- 
coming a  great  and  good  man,  to  that  end.  He  would  not,  he  could  not, 


332  WEBSTER. 

it  was  not  in  his  nature  to  eat  dirt  to  the  people  for  their  votes;  and  the 
people  had  already  reached  that  point  that  they  could  hardly  be  induced  to 
vote  for  a  man  who  would  not  eat  dirt  to  them.  In  1836,  the  Whigs  nomi- 
nated Mr.  Clay.  Failing  to  elect  him,  the  party  then  got  badly  smitten, 
with  the  disease  of  "  availability."  In  the  strength  of  that  disease,  they 
elected  General  Harrison  in  1840,  and  General  Taylor  in  1848;  but  thev 
failed  to  elect  General  Scott  in  1832,  whereupon  the  party  died  of  that 
disease. 

In  1837,  Van  Burcn  being  President,  the  scheme  known  as  the  "  Sub- 
Treasury"  was  set  on  foot.  Under  Jackson's  experiment,  nearly  all  the 
banks  in  the  country,  the  deposit  banks  among  them,  had  been  compelled 
to  suspend  specie  payment ;  and  the  plan  next  hit  upon  was,  that  the  gov- 
ernment should  take  care  only  to  provide  a  safe  currency  for  its  own  use, 
leaving  the  country  to  shift  for  itself,  in  that  matter.  The  Sub-Treasury 
was  born  of  that  idea.  Webster  made  two  speeches  against  it.  The  sec- 
ond, delivered  March  12,  1838,  is  the  most  elaborate  and  instructive  of  his 
speeches  on  the  currency:  nay,  more  ;  it  is  among  the  best,  if  not  the  very 
best,  that  he  ever  made.  It  is  worthy  to  be  a  standard  text-book  with 
every  student  of  finance.  Mr.  S.  Jones  Lloyd,  afterwards  Lord  Overstono, 
one  of  the  highest  financial  authorities  in  England,  being  called  before  a 
committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  enlighten  them  in  matters  of  cur- 
rency, prodmvd  a  copy  of  the  speech,  and  declared  it  to  be  one  of  the  ablest 
and  most  satisf'aetorv  discussions  he  had  ever  seen  in  its  kind  ;  and  ho 
afterwards  spoke  of  Webster  as  a  master  who  had  instructed  him  on  that 
subject. 

In  the  Summer  of  1836,  Webster,  with  his  wife,  his  daughter  Julia,  and 
others  of  his  family,  made  a  private  visit  to  England.  He  was  everywhere 
received  in  all  the  highest  circles  of  intellect  and  culture,  as  no  American 
had  ever  been  received  there  before.  He  met  Wordsworth  repeatedly  in 
London,  and  was  "  delighted  with  him."  Hallam  was  "extremely  struck 
by  his  appearance,  deportment,  and  conversation."  To  Carlylc,  he  was  "  a 
magniiicent  specimen":  "  as  a  parliamentary  Hercules,  one  would  incline 
to  back  him  at  first  sight  against  all  the  extant  world."  Mr.  John  Ken- 
yon  travelled  with  him  four  davs.  Writing  to  Mr.  George  Ticknor,  of 
'Boston,  in  1853,  he  observes  that  this  "  enabled  me  to  know  and  to  love 
not  only  the  great-brained,  but  large-hearted,  genial  man  ;  and  this  love  I 
have  held  for  him  ever  since,  through  good  report  and  evil  report ;  and  I 
shall  retain  this  love  for  him  to  the  day  of  my  own  departure"  Again  re- 
ferring to  some  of  Webster's  playful  sallies :  "Fancy  how  delightful  and  how 
attaching  I  found  all  this  genial  bearing  from  so  famous  a  man  ;  so  affec- 
tionate, so  little  of  a  humbug.  His  greatness  sat  so  easy  and  calm  upon 
him  ;  he  never  had  occasion  to  whip  himself  into  a  froth." 

General  Harrison  became  President  in  March,  1841,  and  took  Webster 
into  his  Cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State.  On  the  5th  of  April  he  died,  hav- 
ing issued  a  proclamation  summoning  Congress  to  meet  in  extra 
on  the  31st  of  May.  Of  course  the  Presidential  office  fell  into  the  hands 
of  Mr.  Tyler.  Congress  undertook,  as  their  first  care,  to  rectify  the  cur- 
rency. As  the  Whigs  had  a  majoritv  in  both  Houses,  thev  passed  a  bill 
chartering  a  new  national  bank.  The  President,  to  the  amazement  of 
everybody,  vetoed  the  bill,  and  the  Whigs  were  not  strong  enough  to  pass 
it  over  the  veto.  The  other  members  of  the  Cabinet  forthwith  resigned. 
Webster  held  on  to  his  place.  lie  saw  how  he  could  do  important  service 
to  his  country  and  to  humanity,  and  his  heart  was  set  upon  doing  it. 
This  had  reference  to  the  long-vexed  question  of  the  north-eastern  boun- 
dary,—  a  standing  theme  of  irritation  to  the  two  governments,  and  more 
than  once  on  the  eve  of  flaming  out  in  a  destructive  war.  The  British 
Ministry  sent  Lord  Ashburton  as  a  special  ambassador  for  the  occasion. 
In  Ashburton,  Webster  found  a  man  like-minded  with  himself;  while  his 


SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE.  333 

perfect  candour  and  fairness,  and  his  benignity  and  magnanimity  of  bear- 
ing made  Ashburton  feel  that  the  honour  of  his  government  was  just  as 
sate  in  Webster's  hands  as  in  his  own.  Not  only  that  particular  question, 
but  several  others,  lull  of  delicacy  and  of  peril,  were  settled  at  the  same 
time ;  and  the  settlement  has  given  entire  satisfaction  to  the  people  of  both 
nations.  The  old  international  sore  was  thus  completely  healed;  and 
Webster  achieved  one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of  diplomacy  on  record. 
Meanwhile,  however,  a  most  dreadful  tcmpe.-t  of  ob'loquy  and  calumny 
broke  out  upon  Webster,  from  a  portion  of  the  Whigs,  because  he  stayed 
in  the  Cabinet,  and  it  raged  against  him  without  stint.  A  large  section 
even  of  the  Whigs  in  Massachusetts  joined  in  this  wretched  chorus  of 
vituperation,  as  thinking  to  rail  and  browbeat  him  out  of  his  propriety. 
But  lie  had,  in  an  eminent  degree,  the  high  quality  of  civil  and  political 
courage  ;  neither  fear  nor  favour  could  make  him  budge  an  inch  from  his 
clear  and  conscientious  convictions;  and  he  stood  through  "  the  pollings 
of  this  pitiless  storm,"  with  his  heart  full  of  grief  indeed,  but  nevertheless 
unflinching  in  his  duty.  On  the  30th  of  September.  1842,  while  the  tern- 
]>!•>'  was  in  full  blast,  he  math;  a  speech  in  Fancuil  Hall,  and,  referring  to 
his  assailants,  said,  "  1  am.  (ientlemen,  something  hard  to  coax,  but  as  to 
being  driven,  that  is  out  of  the  question." 

I>ut  Webster's  greatest  service  to  the  country  was  during  the  last  three 
years  of  his  Hie.  He  hated  slavery  much,  hut  he  loved  the  Union  more: 
this  was  inexpressibly  dear  to  him  ;  he  knew  its  unspeakable  importance 
to  the  well-being  of  the  American  people  ;  and  the  thought  of  its  being  de- 
stroyed wrung  liis  heart  with  anguish.  He  also  saw  that  the  controversies 
then  raging  between  the  North  ami  the  South,  unless  they  could  be  allayed, 
must  soon  culminate  in  seee^ion  and  civil  war.  For  the  prevention,  or, 
if  this  might  not  be,  for  the  postponement,  of  such  an  issue,  he  felt  that 
every  danger  must  be  faced,  every  exertion  made,  every  sacrifice  incurred. 
For  the>e  reasons,  he.  put  forth  his  whole  strength  in  favour  of  the  Com- 
promise Measures  df  ls.">o.  lie  well  knew  the  risk  he  was  running;  but, 
in  his  judgment,  the  occasion  called  on  him,  imperatively,  to  head  the  for- 
lorn hope.  And  so,  in  the  last  hope  of  saving  his  cause,  he  deliberately 
staked  his  all:  he  himself  went  down  indeed,  but  the  cause  \va-  saved.  In  ail 
this,  most  assuredly,  he  was  right,  nobly  right,  heroically  right  ;  and  none 
the  less  so,  that  his  action  was  fatal,  politically,  to  himself.  The  crowning 
success  and  triumph  of  his  life  grew  from  his  great  speech  of  the  7th  of 
March,  1850^  The  Compromise  Measures  were  carried,  and  the  explosion, 
then  so  imminent,  was  postponed.  Ten  years  of  time  were  thereby  gained. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  gaining  of  time  saved  the  Union:  for 
>ve  may  well  tremble  to  think  of  what,  in  all  probability*  would  have  been 
the  result,  had  the  explosion  come  on  in  1851,  instead  of  18G1.  And  it 
owing  to  Webster,  far  more  than  to  any  other  one  man,  yes,  more 
than  to  any  other  fifty  men,  that  the  nation  was  prepared  for  the  crisis 
when  it  came.  His  earnest  teachings,  warnings,  and  exhortations,  as  to 
the  value  of  the  Union,  and  the  dutv,  nav,  the  neeessitv,  of  preserving  it 
at  all  hazards,  had  sunk  deep  into  the  mind  of  the  country.  For  twenty 
year.-,  this  had  been  the  burden  of  all  his  public  speaking.  His  words 
were  on  the  lips  and  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  from  Maine  to  California; 
and  when,  upon  the  bursting  of  the  storm,  the,  people  sprang  so  gloriously 
to  the  rescue,  it  was  the  great  soul  of  Daniel  Webster,  breathing  arid  beat- 
ing in  them,  without  their  knowing  it,  that  brought  and  held  them  to  the 
work,  till  Mere.s.Moii  was  overwhelmed  by  a  wide-sweeping  torrent  of  blood 
and  lire.  The  war  was  all  fought  out  on  the  lines  which  Webster  had 
marked  down  ;  nay,  more;  the  decisive  battles  for  the  Union  were  won  by 
him,  ten  years  before  the  war  began.  Nor  did  it  escape  his  "  large  dis- 
course," that  the  crisis,  after  all,  was  but  postponed.  In  his  private  inter- 
course, he  expressed  it  as  his  settled  conviction,  ihut  the  trial  was  bound 


334  WEBSTER. 

to  come,  sooner  or  later.  Now  that  war  cost  the  nation  not  less  than  five 
hundred  thousand  lives,  and  five  thousand  millions  of  money.  Those  who 
foresaw  nothing  of  this  cost  may  be  excused  for  having  provoked  the  con- 
test, as  they  also  may  for  having  scoffed,  ;vs  they  did,  at  the  great  man's 
warnings  and  his  fears  :  but,  a.s  \Vcbster  had  a  forecast  of  it  all,  he  would 
have  been  utterly  inexcusable,  both  as  a  statesman  and  a  man,  if  he  had 
not  strained  every  nerve,  and  staked  his  all,  to  avert  the  dreadful  evil. 

On  the  death  of  General  Taylor,  in  July,  1850,  Proidcnt  Fillmore  called 
Webster  into  his  Cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State.  Though  he  had  long  been 
suffering  from  a  chronic  catarrh,  and  though  his  life  was  (a-t  ebbing 
away,  at  the  President's  earnest  solicitations  he  remained  in  office  till  his 
death,  which  occurred  at  his  house  in  Marshfield  on  the  24th  of  October, 
1852.  How  the  dying  man  met  his  last  hour  on  Earth,  is  well  shown  in 
that,  upon  beginning  to  repeat  the  Lord's  Praver,  he  grew  faint,  and  called 
out  earnestly,  "  Hold  me  up;  I  do  not  wish  to  pray  with  a  fainting  voice." 

Webster's  vast  power  of  intellect  is  admitted  by  all  :  but  it  is  not  so 
generally  known  that  he  was  as  sweet  as  he  was  powerful,  and  nowhere 
more  powerful  than  in  his  sweetness.  When  thoroughly  aroused  in  pub- 
lie  >peech,  there  was  indeed  something  terrible  about  him  ;  his  big,  dark, 
burning  eye  seemed  to  bore  a  man  through  and  through  :  but  in  hi- 
hours,  wluMi  his  massive  brow  and  features  were  lighted  up  with  a  charac- 
teristic smile,  it  was  like  a  gleam  of  Paradise ;  no  person  who  once  saw 
that  full-souled  smile  of  his  could  ever  forget  it.  His  goodly  person,  his 
gracious  bearing,  and  his  benignant  courtesy  made  him  the  delight  of  every 
circle  he  entered  :  in  the  presence  of  ladies,  especially,  his  great  powers 
seemed  to  robe  themselves  spontaneously  in  beauty  ;  and  his  attentions 
were  so  delicate  and  so  respectful,  that  they  could  not  but  be  charmed. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  see  and  hear  Webster  on  various  occasions,— 
in  Fanenil  Hall,  in  the  national  Senate,  in  the  court-room,  and  in  the  ordi- 
nary talk  of  man  with  man.  In  all  these  he  was  great, —  great  in  intellect, 
great  in  character,  and  in  all  the  proper  correspondencies  of  greatness. 
And  I  have  it  from  those  who  knew  him  well,  that  intimacy  never  wore  off 
the  impression  of  his  greatness:  on  the  contrary,  none  could  get  so  near 
him,  or  stay  near  him  so  long,  but  that  he  still  kept  growing  upon  them. 
But  he  had  something  better  than  all  this:  he  was  as  lovelv  in  disposition 
as  he  was  great  in  mind  :  a  larger,  warmer,  manlier  heart,  a  heart  more 
alive  with  tenderness  and  all  the  gentle  affections,  was  never  lodged  in  a  hu- 
man breast.  Of  this  1  could  give  many  telling  and  touching  proofs  from 
his  private  history,  if  my  space  would  permit.  Scorch  me,  if  you  will,  for 
saying  it,  but  I  verily  believe  there  was  more  of  solid  goodness  of  heart  in 
one  hour  of  Daniel  Webster  than  in  a  whole  year  of  any  other  man  whom 
Massachusetts  has  since  had  in  the  national  councils. 

Notwithstanding  his  great  abilities  as  a  financier,  Webster's  own  pri- 
vate finances  were  often  much  embarrassed.  In  giving  himself  up  to  the 
public  service,  he  cut  himself  off  from  a  large  professional  income.  lie  was 
by  nature  free,  generous,  and  magnificent  in  his  dispositions.  His  vast 
reputation,  the  dignity  and  elegance  of  his  manners,  the  engaging  suavity 
and  affability  of  his  conversation,  in  a  word,  the  powerful  magnetism  of  the 
man,  drew  a  great  deal  of  high  company  round  him,  and  necessarily  made 
his  expenses  large.  Therewithal;  he  had  "  a  tear  for  pity,  and  a  hand  open 
as  day  for  melting  charity";  and  his  big,  kind  heart  ever  joyed  to  share 
his  best  with  the  humblest  about  him.  Nevertheless  it  has  to  be  conceded 
that  he  was,  I  will  not  say  prodigal,  but  something  too  lavish,  or  at  least 
too  liberal,  in  his  domestic  appointments.  This  was  indeed  a  serious  blem- 
ish. To  be  sure,  all  the  money  in  the  country  could  not  measure  the  worth 
of  his  services.  Still  it  would  have  been  better  for  his  peace  of  mind,  and 
would  have  saved  a  deal  of  ugly  scandal,  if  he  had  kept  strictly  within  the 
small  returns  which  his  great  public  services  brought  in  to  him. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER. 


SPEECH  IN  REPLY  TO  IIAYJSTE.1 

WHEN"  this  debate,  Sir,  was  to  be  resumed,  on  Thursday 
morning,  it  so  happened  that  it  would  have  been  convenient  for 
me  to  be  elsewhere.'2  The  honourable  member,  however,  did 
not  incline  to  put  off  the  discussion  to  another  day.  He  had  a 
shot,  he  said,  to  return,  and  he  wished  to  discharge  it.  That 
shot,  Sir,  which  he  thus  kindly  informed  us  was  coining,  that 
we  might •  stand  out  of  the  way,  or  prepare  ourselves  to  fall  by 
it  and  die  with  decency,  has  now  been  received.  Under  all  ad- 
vantages, and  witli  expectation  awakened  by  the  tone  which 
preceded  it,  it  has  been  discharged,  and  has  spent  its  force.  It 
may  become  me  t«.  say  no  more  of  its  effect  than  that,  if  nobody 
is  found,  after  all,  either  killed  or  wounded,  it  is  not  the  first 
time,  in  the  history  of  human  affairs,  that  the  vigour  and  suc- 
cess of  the  war  have  not  quite  corne  up  to  the  lofty  and  sounding 
phrase  of  the  manifesto. 

The  gentleman,  Sir,  in  declining  to  postpone  the  debate,  told 
the  Senate,  with  the  emphasis  of  his  hand  upon  his  heart,  that 
there  was  something  rankling  here,  of  which  he  wished  to  rid 
himself  by  an  immediate  reply.  In  this  respect,  Sir,  I  have  a 

1  Under  this  heading  I  give  nearly  all  of  what  is  commonly  known  as  Web- 
ster's ".Second  Speech  on  Foot's  Resolution,"  delivered  in  the  National  Senate, 
January  2G,  1830.     Foot  was  one  of  the  Senators  from  Connecticut;  and  his 
re-oiiition  had  reference  only  to  the  disposal  of  the  public  lands  in  the  West. 
Tin-  Jlon.  Robert  Y.  Iliiyne,  whose  speech  drew  forth  this  great  effort,  was  one 
of  the.  Senators  from  South  Carolina,  and  was  admitted  on  all  hands  to  be  a  very 
able  and  brilliant  and  eloquent  speaker.     ]Jut  his  speech,  on  this  occasion,  was 
highly  discur.-ive,  not  to  say  rambling,  introducing  a  large  variety  of  topics, 
and  hardly  touching  upon  the  special  subject-matter  of  the  resolution  before  the 
Senate.     J  give  the  argument,  of  Webster's  speech  entire,  I  believe,  in  all  its 

milting  only  some  amplifications  which,  though  apt  and  telling  at  the 
time,  would  now  be  rather  in  the  way,  besides  that  they  make  the  speech  too 
long  for  this  volume. 

2  Webster  had  at  that  time  a  pressing  and  important  engagement  in  the  Su- 
preme Court,  which  occupied  him  so  much  that  lie  had  no  thought  of  sharing  iu 
this  debate  till  Hayne'a  speech  roused  and  riveted  his  mind  to  the  question. 

3135 


336  WEBSTER. 

great  advantage  over  the  honourable  gentleman.  There  is 
nothing  here,  Sir,  which  gives  me  the  slightest  uneasiness  ; 
neither  fear,  nor  anger,  nor  that  which  is  sometimes  more 
troublesome  than  either, — the  consciousness  of  having  been  in 
the  wrong.  There  is  nothing  either  originating  here  or  now  re- 
ceived here  by  the  gentleman's  shot.  Xothing  originating  here, 
for  I  had  not  the  slightest  feeling  of  imkindness  towards  the 
honourable  member.  Some  passages,  it  is  true,  had  occurred 
since  our  acquaintance  in  this  body,  which  I  could  have  wished 
might  have  been  otherwise  ;  but  I  had  used  philosophy  and  for- 
gotten them.  I  paid  the  honourable  member  the  attention  of 
listening  with  respect  to  his  first  speech ;  and  when  he  sat 
down,  though  surprised,  and  I  must  even  say  astonished,  at 
some  of  his  opinions,  nothing  was  further  from  my  intention 
than  to  commence  any  personal  warfare.  Through  the  whole 
of  the  few  remarks  I  made  in  answer,  I  avoided,  studiously  and 
carefully,  every  tiling  which  I  thought  possible  to  be  construed 
into  disrespect.  And,  Sir,  while  there  is  thus  nothing  originat- 
ing here,  which  I  have  wished  at  any  time,  or  now  wish,  to  dis- 
charge, I  must  repeat,  also,  that  nothing  has  been  received  I/n-c 
which  rankles,  or  in  any  way  gives  me  annoyance.  I  will  not 
accuse  the  honourable  member  of  violating  the  rules  of  civilixed 
war  ;  I  will  not  say  that  he  poisoned  his  arrows.  But  whether 
his  shafts  wrere,  or  were  not,  dipped  in  that  which  would  have 
caused  rankling  if  they  had  reached  their  destination,  there  was 
not,  as  it  happened,  quite  strength  enough  in  the  bow  to  bring 
them  to  their  mark.  If  he  wishes  now  to  gather  up  those  shafts, 
he  must  look  for  them  elsewhere:  they  will  not  be  found  fixed 
and  quivering  iirthe  object  at  which  they  were  aimed. 

The  honourable  member  complained  that  I  had  slept  on  his 
speech.  I  must  have  slept  on  it,  or  not  slept  at  all.  The  mo- 
ment the  honourable  member  sat  down,  his  friend  from  Mis- 
souri rose,3  and,  with  much  honeyed  commendation  of  the 
speech,  suggested  that  the  impressions  which  it  had  produced 
were  too  charming  and  delightful  to  be  disturbed  by  other  senti- 
ments or  other  sounds,  and  proposed  that  the  Senate  should 
adjourn.  Would  it  have  been  quite  amiable  in  me,  Sir,  to  in- 
terrupt this  excellent  good  feeling?  Must  I  not  have  been 
absolutely  malicious,  if  I  could  have  thrust  myself  forward,  to 
destroy  sensations  thus  pleasing?  Was  it  not  much  better  and 
kinder,  both  to  sleep  upon  them  myself,  and  to  allow  others 
also  the  pleasure  of  sleeping  upon  .them  ?  But  if  it  be  meant, 
by  sleeping  upon  his  speech,  that  I  took  time  to  prepare  a  reply, 

3  This  "friend  from  Missouri"  was  Mr.  Bcnton,  one  of  the  leaders  of  what 
was  then  called  tlie  Jackson  party,  in  the  Senate. 


SPEECH   IN   REPLY  TO   HAYNE.  337 

it  is  quite  a  mistake.  Owing  to  other  engagements,  I  could  not 
employ  even  the  interval  between  the  adjournment  of  the  Sen- 
ate and  its  meeting  the  next  morning,  in  attention  to  the  subject 
of  this  debate.  Nevertheless,  Sir,  the  mere  matter  of  fact  is 
undoubtedly  true.  I  did  sleep  on  the  gentleman's  speech,  and 
slept  soundly.  And  I  slept  equally  well  on  his  speech  of  yester- 
day, to  which  I  am  now  replying.  It  is  quite  possible  that  in 
this  respect,  also,  I  possess  some  advantage  over  the  honour- 
able member,  attributable,  doubtless,  to  a  cooler  temperament 
on  my  part;  for,  in  truth,  I  slept  upon  his  speeches  remarkably 
well. 

But  the  gentleman  inquires  why  7ie  was  made  the  object  of 
such  a  reply?  "Why  was  he  singled  out?  If  an  attack  has  been 
made  on  the  East,  he,  he  assures  us,  did  not  begin  it :  it  was 
made  by  the  gentleman  from  Missouri.  Sir,  I  answered  the 
gentleman's  speech  because  I  happened  to  hear  it;  and  be- 
cause, also,  I  chose  to  give  an  answer  to  that  speech  which,  if 
unanswered,  I  thought  most  likely  to  produce  injurious  impres- 
sions. I  did  not  stop  to  inquire  who  was  the  original  drawer 
of  the  bill.  I  found  a  responsible  indorser  before  me,  and  it 
was  my  purpose  to  hold  him  liable,  amUto  bring  him  to  his  just 
responsibility,  without  delay.  But,  Sir,  this  interrogatory  of 
the  honourable  member  was  only  introductory  to  another.  He 
proceeded  to  ask  me  whether  I  had  turned  upon  him,  in  this 
debute,  from  the  consciousness  that  I  should  find  an  overmatch, 
if  I  ventured  on  a  contest  with  his  friend  from  Missouri.  If, 
Sir,  the  honourable  member,  modestice  yratia,  had  chosen  thus  to 
defer  to  his  friend,  and  to  pay  him  a  compliment,  without  inten- 
tional disparagement  to  others,  it  would  have  been  quite  accord- 
ing to  the  friendly  courtesies  of  debate,  and  not  at  all  ungrateful 
to  my  own  feelings.  I  am  not  one  of  »those,  Sir,  who  esteem 
any  tribute  of  regard,  whether  light  and  occasional,  or  more 
>us  and  deliberate,  which  may  be  bestowed  on  others,  as  so 
much  unjustly  withholden  from  themselves.  ]>ut  the  tone  and 
manner  of  the  gentleman's  question  forbid  me  thus  to  interpret 
U.  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  consider  it  as  nothing  more  than  a 
civility  to  his  friend.  It  had  an  air  of  taunt  and  disparagement, 
something  of  the  loftiness  of  asserted  superiority,  which  does 
imi  allow  me  to  pass  it  over  without  notice.  It  was  put  as  a 
question  forme  to  answer,  and  so  put  as  if  it  were  difficult  for 
me  to  answer,  whether  I  deemed  the  member  from  Missouri  an 
overmatch  for  myself  in  debate  here.  It  seems  to  me,  Sir,  that 
this  is  extraordinary  language,  and  an  extraordinary  tone,  for 
the  discussions  of  this  body. 

Matches  and  overmatches!    Those  terms  are  more  applicable 
elsewhere  than  here,  and  fitter  for  other  assemblies  than  this. 


338  WEBSTER. 

Sir,  the  gentleman  seems  to  forget  where  and  what  we  are. 
This  is  a  Senate,  a  Senate  of  equals,  of  men  of  individual  hon- 
our and  personal  character,  and  of  absolute  independence.  AVe 
know  no  masters,  we  acknowledge  no  dictators.  This  is  a  hall 
for  mutual  consultation  and  discussion;  not  an  arena  for  the 
exhibition  of  champions.  I  offer  myself,  Sir,  as  a  match  for  no 
man ;  I  throw  the  challenge  of  debate  at  no  man's  feet.  But 
then,  Sir,  since  the  honourable  member  has  put  the  question  in 
a  manner  that  calls  for  an  answer,  I  will  give  him  an  answer; 
and  I  tell  him  that,  holding  myself  to  be  the  humblest  of  the 
members  here,  I  yet  know  nothing  in  the  arm  of  his  friend  from 
Missouri,  either  alone  or  when  aided  by  the  arm  of  his  friend 
from  South  Carolina,  that  need  deter  even  me  from  espousing 
whatever  opinions  I  may  choose  to  espouse,  from  debating 
whenever  I  may  choose  to  debate,  or  from  speaking  whatever  I 
may  see  fit  to  say,  on  the  iloor  of  the  Senate.  Sir,  when  uttered 
as  matter  of  commendation  or  compliment,  I  should  dissent 
from  nothing  which  the  honourable  member  might  say  of  his 
friend.  Still  less  do  I  put  forth  any  pretensions  of  my  own. 
But  when  put  to  me  as  matter  of  taunt,  I  throw  it  back,  and  say 
to  the  gentleman  that  he  could  possibly  say  nothing  more  likely 
than  such  a  comparison  to  wound  my  pride  of  personal  charac- 
ter. The  anger  of  its  tone  rescued  the  remark  from  intentional 
irony,  which  otherwise,  probably,  would  have  been  its  general 
acceptation.  But,  Sir,  if  it  be  imagined  that  by  this  mutual 
quotation  and  commendation  ;  if  it  be  supposed  that,  by  casting 
the  characters  of  the  drama,  assigning  to  each  his  part,  to  one 
the  attack,  to  another  the  cry  of  onset ;  or  if  it  be  thought  that, 
by  a  loud  and  empty  vaunt  of  anticipated  victory,  any  laurels 
are  to  be  won  here  ;  if  it  be  imagined,  especially,  that  any,  or  all 
these  things  will  shake  any  purpose  of  mine,  I  can  tell  the  hon- 
ourable member,  once  for  all,  that  he  is  greatly  mistaken,  and 
that  he  is  dealing  with  one  of  whose  temper  and  character  he 
has  yet  much  to  learn.  Sir,  I  shall  not  allow  myself,  on  this 
occasion,  I  hope  on  no  occasion,  to  be  betrayed  into  any  loss  of 
temper:  but  if  provoked,  as  I  trust  I  never  shall  be,  into  crimi- 
nation and  recrimination,  the  honourable  member  may  perhaps 
find  that,  in  that  contest,  there  will  be  blows  to  take  as  well  as 
blows  to  give  ;  that  others  can  state  comparisons  as  significant, 
at  least,  as  his  own  ;  and  that  his  impunity  may  possibly  de- 
mand of  him  whatever  powers  of  taunt  and  sarcasm  he  may 
possess.  I  commend  him  to  a  prudent  husbandry  of  his 
resources. 

But,  Sir,  the  Coalition!  The  Coalition!  Ay,  "the  mur- 
dered Coalition  I"  The  gentlemen  asks,  if  I  were  led  or 
frighted  into  this  debate  by  the  spectre  of  the  Coalition. 


SPEECH   IN   REPLY  TO   IIAYNE.  339 

"  Was  it  the  ghost  of  the  murdered  Coalition,"  he  exclaims, 
"  which  haunted  the  member  from  Massachusetts  ;  and  which, 
like  the  ghost  of  Banquo,  would  never  down  ?  "  **  The  murdered 
Coalition!"  Sir,  this  charge  of  a  coalition,  in  reference  to  the 
late  administration,4  is  not  original  with  the  honourable  member. 
It  did  not  spring  up  in  the  Senate.  Whether  as  a  fact,  as  an  ar- 
gument, or  as  an  embellishment,  it  is  all  borrowed.  He  adopts 
it,  indeed,  from  a  very  low  origin,  and  a  still  lower  present  con- 
dition. It  is  one  of  the  thousand  calumnies  with  which  the 
press  teemed  during  an  excited  political  canvass.  It  was  a 
charge,  of  which  there  was  not  only  no  proof  or  probability, 
but  which  was  in  itself  wholly  impossible  to  be  true.  No  man 
of  common  information  ever  believed  a  syllable  of  it.  Yet  it 
was  of  that  class  of  falsehoods  which,  by  continued  repetition 
through  all  the  organs  of  detraction  and  abuse,  are  capable  of 
misleading  those  who  are  already  far  misled,  and  of  further 
fanning  passion  already  kindling  into  flame.  Doubtless  it 
served  in  its  day,  and,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  the  end  de- 
signed by  it.  Having  done  that,  it  has  sunk  into  the  general 
mass  of  stale  and  loathed  calumnies.  It  is  the  very  cast-off 
slough  of  a  polluted  and  shameless  press.  Incapable  of  further 
mischief,  it  lies  in  the  sewer,  lifeless  and  despised.  It  is  not 
now,  Sir,  in  the  power  of  the  honourable  member  to  give  it  dig- 
nity or  decency,  by  attempting  to  elevate  it,  and  to  introduce  it 
into  the  Senate.  He  cannot  change  it  from  what  it  is,  an  ob- 
ject of  general  disgust  and  scorn.  On  the  contrary,  the  contact, 
if  he  choose  to  touch  it,  is  more  likely  to  drag  him  down,  down, 
to  the  place  where  it  lies  itself. 

But,  Sir,  the  honourable  member  was  not,  for  other  reasons, 
entirely  happy  in  his  allusion  to  the  story  of  Banquo's  murder 
and  Banquo's  ghost.  It  was  not,  I  think,  the  friends,  but  the 

4  "The  Coalition !"  was  one  of  the  partisan  outcries  raised  against  the  ad- 
ministration of  1'resident  John  Quiney  Adams;  and  it  was  urged  with  incredi- 
ble violence  during  the  canva-s  of  1  -S  in  order  to  defeat  the  reelection  of  Ad- 
ams, and  bring  in  General  Jackson.  In  1821,  Mr.  Clay  was  a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency  along  with  Adams.  As  there  was  then  no  flection  by  the  people,  it 
fell  to  the  House  of  Kcpresentatives  to  elect  a  President,  and  (/lay's  friends,  or 
the  most  of  them,  voted  for  Adams,  and  thus  secured  a  majority  of  the  States  in 
}\i-  favour.  Adams  gave  the  jirst  scat  in  his  cabinet  to  Clay;  not  from  any  pre- 
vious understanding  between  them,  or  between  their  friends,  but  because  Clay 
.•vidently  the  right  man  for  the  place.  This  appointment  was  eagerly 
seized  upon  as  inferring  a  bargain;  and  the  false  accusation  of  a  corrupt  coali- 
tion thus  grounded  probably  did  a  good  deal  towards  defeating  the  reelection 
of  Adams  in  l&W.  Air.  Calhoun  was  elected  Vice-President  both  in  18-J4  and  in 
1828;  and  in  the  latter  year  he  gave  all  bis  influence  against  Adams  and  in 
favour  of  Jackson.  All  through  those  years,  Calhoun  carried  the  politics  of 
South  Carolina  in  his  pocket,  nor  was  hid  strength  by  any  means  conlined  to 
that  State. 


340  WEBSTER. 

enemies  of  the  murdered  Banquo,  at  whose  bidding  his  spirit 
would  not  down.  The  honourable  gentleman  is  fresh  in  his 
reading  of  the  English  classics,  and  can  put  me  right  if  I  am 
wrong:  but,  according  to  my  poor  recollection,  it  was  at  those 
who  had  begun  with  caresses  and  ended  with  foul  and  treach- 
erous murder  that  the  gory  locks  were  shaken.  The  ghost  of 
Banquo,  like  that  of  Hamlet,  was  an  honest  ghost.  It  dis- 
turbed no  innocent  man.  It  knew  where  its  appearance  would 
strike  terror,  and  who  would  cry  out,  "A  ghost!"  It  made 
itself  visible  in  the  right  quarter,  and  compelled  the  guilty  and 
the  conscience-smitten,  and  none  others,  to  start,  with, 

'•Pr'ythcc,  sec  there!  behold!  look!  lo!  — 
li'I  stand  here,  I  s:iw  him !  " 

THEIR  eyeballs  were  seared  (was  it  not  so,  Sir?)  who  had 
thought  to  shield  themselves  by  concealing  their  own  hand, 
and  laying  the  imputation  of  the  crime  on  a  low  and  hireling 
agency  in  wickedness;  who  had  vainly  attempted  to  stifle  the 
workings  of  their  own  coward  consciences,  by  ejaculating, 
through  white  lips  and  chattering  teeth,  "Thou  canst  not  say  I 
did  it ! "  I  have  misread  the  great  Poet  if  those  who  had  no 
way  partaken  in  the  deed  of  the  death  either  found  that  they 
were,  or  feared  that  they  should  be,  pushed  from  their  stools  by 
the  ghost  of  the  slain,  or  exclaimed,  to  a  spectre  created  by 
their  own  fears  and  their  own  remorse,  "  A  vaunt  I  and  quit  our 
sight!" 

There  is  another  particular,  Sir,  in  which  the  honourable 
member's  quick  perception  of  resemblances  might,  I  should 
think,  have  seen  something  in  the  story  of  Banquo,  making  it 
not  altogether  a  subject  of  the  most  pleasant  contemplation. 
Those  who  murdered  Banquo,  what  did  they  win  by  it?  Sub- 
stantial good?  Permanent  power?  Or  disappointment,  rather, 
and  sore  mortification;  dust  and  ashes,— the  common  fate  of 
vaulting  ambition  overleaping  itself?  Did  not  even-handed 
justice  ere  long  commend  the  poisoned  chalice  to  their  own 
lips?  Did  they  not  soon  find  that  for  another  they  had  "filed 
their  mind?"  that  their  ambition,  though  apparently  for  the 
moment  successful,  had  but  put  a  barren  sceptre  in  their 
grasp?5  Ay,  sir, 

5  The  application  here  intended,  though  clear  enough  at  the  time,  is  some- 
what obscure  to  us.  Supposing  there  to  have,  been  a  coalition,  and  that  coali- 
tion to  have  been  killed,  the  killing  must  have  been  done  by  the  friends  of 
Calhoun,  among  whom  Mr.  Ilayne  stood  foremost.  Of  course  they  who  had 
killed  the  coalition  were  the.  ones  to  be  haunted  by  its  ghost;  and  Webster  hore 
delicately  implies  that  they  had  expected  to  stand  lir^t  in  the  counseU  of  tlio 


SPEECH   IN   REPLY  TO   HAYNE.  341 

"  a  barren  sceptre  in  their  gripe, 
Thence  to  be  wrench?  d  by  an  unlineal  hand, 
No  son  of  theirs  succeeding ." 

Sir,  I  need  pursue  the  allusion  no  further.  I  leave  the  hon- 
ourable gentleman  to  run  it  out  at  his  leisure,  and  to  derive 
from  it  all  the  gratification  it  is  calculated  to  administer.  If  he 
finds  himself  pleased  with  the  associations,  and  prepared  to  be 
quite  satisfied  though  the  parallel  should  be  entirely  completed, 
I  had  almost  said  I  am  satisfied  also  ;  but  that  I  shall  think  of. 
Yes,  Sir,  I  will  think  of  that. 

In  the  course  of  my  observations  the  other  day,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, I  paid  a  passing  tribute  of  respect  to  a  very  worthy  man, 
Mr.  Dane,  of  Massachusetts.  It  so  happened  that  he  drew  the 
Ordinance  of  1787,  for  the  government  of  the  Northwestern 
Territory.  A  man  of  so  much  ability,  and  so  little  pretence ; 
of  so  great  a  capacity  to  do  good,  and  so  unmixed  a  disposition 
to  do  it  for  its  own  sake  ;  a  gentleman  who  had  acted  an  impor- 
tant part,  forty  years  ago,  in  a  measure  the  influence  of  which 
is  still  deeply  felt  in  the  very  matter  which  was  the  subject  of 
debate,  might,  I  thought,  receive  from  me  a  commendatory 
recognition.  But  the  honourable  member  was  inclined  to  be 
facetious  on  the  subject.  He  was  rather  disposed  to  make  it 
matter  of  ridicule,  that  I  had  introduced  into  the  debate  the 
name  of  one  Nathan  Dane,  of  whom  he  assures  us  he  had 
nrvi-r  before  heard.  Sir,  if  the  honourable  member  had  never 
before  heard  of  Mr.  Dane,  I  am  sorry  for  it.  It  shows  him  less 
acquainted  with  the  public  men  of  the  country  than  I  had  sup- 
posed. Let  me  tell  him,  however,  that  a  sneer  from  him  at  the 
mention  of  the  name  of  Mr.  Dane  is  in  bad  taste.  It  may  well 
be  a  mark  of  ambition,  Sir,  either  with  the  honourable  gentle- 
man or  myself,  to  accomplish  as  much  to  make  our  names 
known  to  advantage,  and  remembered  with  gratitude,  as  Mr. 
[>anr,  has  accomplished.  But  the  truth  is,  Sir,  I  suspect,  that 
Mr.  Dane  lives  a  little  too  far  north,  lie  is  of  Massachusetts, 
and  too  near  the  north  star  to  be  reached  by  the  honourable 
gent  Ionian's  telescope.  If  his  sphere  had  happened  to  range 
south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line)  he  might  probably  have  come 
within  the  scope  of  his  vision. 

I   spoke,  Sir,  of  the  Ordinance  of   1787,  which  prohibited 

party  in  wlion-  In-half  the  killing  was  done,  and  also  to  hold  the  succession  of 
jjoucr.  ttut  it  was  not  long  in  becoming  evident  that  Van  I?uvcn,  and  not  Cal- 
Imun,  had  the  ascendant  in  Jack.-ion':*  counsels;  in  fact,  mailers  soon  grew  to  a 
dccMed  rupture  between  Jackson  and  Calhoun;  and  at  the  time  \,hon  this 
speech  \\-as  madf  ir,  was  manifest  thatCalhouu  and  hh  friends  were  cut  off  from 
the  party  succession. 


342  WEBSTER. 

slavery,  in  all  future  times,  northwest  of  the  Ohio,  as  a  measure 
of  great  wisdom  and  foresight,  and  one  which  had  been 
attended  with  highly  beneficial  and  permanent  consequences. 
I  supposed  that,  on  this  point,  no  two  gentlemen  in  the  Sen- 
ate could  entertain  different  opinions.  But  the  simple  expres- 
sion of  this  sentiment  has  led  the  gentleman  not  only  into  a 
laboured  defence  of  slavery,  in  the  abstract,  and  on  principle, 
but  also  into  a  warm  accusation  against  me,  as  having  attacked 
the  system  of  domestic  slavery  now  existing  in  the  Southern 
States.  For  all  this,  there  was  not  the  slightest  foundation, 
in  any  thing  said  or  intimated  by  me.  I  did  not  utter  a  single 
word  which  any  ingenuity  could  torture  into  an  attack  on  the  sla- 
very of  the  South.  I  only  said  that  it  was  highly  wise  and  use- 
ful, in  legislating  for  the  Northwestern  country  while  it  was  yet 
a  wilderness,  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of  slaves  ;  and  added, 
that  I  presumed  there  was  no  reflecting  and  intelligent  person, 
in  the  neighbouring  State  of  Kentucky,  who  would  doubt  that, 
if  the  same  prohibition  had  been  extended,  at  the  same  early 
period,  over  that  commonwealth,  her  strength  and  population 
would,  at  this  day,  have  been  far  greater  than  they  are.  If 
these  opinions  be  thought  doubtful,  they  are  nevertheless,  I 
trust,  neither  extraordinary  nor  disrespectful.  They  attack 
nobody  and  menace  nobody.  And  yet,  Sir,  the  gentleman's 
optics  have  discovered,  even  in  the  mere  expression  of  this 
sentiment,  what  he  calls  the  very  spirit  of  the  Missouri  ques- 
tion!0 He  represents  me  as  making  an  onset  on  the  whole 
South,  and  manifesting  a  spirit  which  would  interfere  with,  and 
disturb,  their  domestic  condition! 

Sir,  this  injustice  no  otherwise  surprises  me  than  as  it  is  com- 
mitted here,  and  committed  without  the  slightest  pretence  of 
ground  for  it.  I  say  it  only  surprises  me  as  being  done  here  ; 
for  I  know  full  well  that  it  is,  and  has  been,  the  settled  policy 
of  some  persons  in  the  South,  for  years,  to  represent  the  people 
of  the  North  as  disposed  to  interfere  with  them  in  their  own 
exclusive  and  peculiar  concerns.  This  is  a  delicate  and  sensi- 
tive point,  in  Southern  feeling ;  and  of  late  years  it  has  always 
been  touched,  and  generally  with  effect,  whenever  the  object 
has  been  to  unite  the  whole  South  against  Northern  men  or 
Northern  measures.  This  feeling,  always  carefully  kept  alive, 
and  maintained  at  too  intense  a  heat  to  admit  discrimination  or 
reflection,  is  a  lever  of  great  power  in  our  political  machine.  It 
moves  vast  bodies,  and  gives  to  them  one  and  the  same  dircc- 

6  This  "  Missouri  question"  was  upon  the  Admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave- 
holding  State,  ia  1820.  The  question  was  agitated  a  long  time  with  exceeding 
heat,  and  bittcTiu'.'-s ;  the  agitation  ending  at  last  in  what  was  called  "The  Mis- 
souri Compromise." 


SPEECH   IN   REPLY   TO   HAYXE.  343 

tion.  But  it  is  without  adequate  cause,  and  the  suspicion 
which  exists  is  wholly  groundless.  There  is  not,  and  never  lias 
been,  a  disposition  in  the  North  to  interfere  with  these  interests 
of  the  South.  Such  interference  has  never  been  supposed  to  be 
within  the  power  of  government;  nor  has  it  been  in  any  way 
attempted.  The  slavery  of  the  South  lias  always  been  regarded 
as  a  matter  of  domestic  policy,  left  with  the  States  themselves, 
and  with  which  the  federal  government  had  nothing  to  do. 
Certainly,  Sir,  I  am,  and  ever  have  been,  of  that  opinion.  The 
gentleman,  indeed,  argues  that  slavery,  in  the  abstract,  is  no 
evil.  Most  assuredly  I  need  not  say  I  differ  with  him,  altogether 
and  most  widely,  on  that  point.  I  regard  domestic  slavery  as 
one  of  the  greatest  of  evils,  both  moral  and  political.  But 
whether  it  be  a  malady,  and  whether  it  be  curable,  and,  if  so, 
by  what  means  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  it  be  the  vulnus 
immcdicalile  of  the  social  system,  I  leave  it  to  those  whose  right 
and  duty  it  is  to  inquire  and  to  decide.  And  this  I  believe, 
Sir,  is,  and  uniformly  has  been,  the  sentiment  of  the  North. 

Having  had  occasion  to  recur  to  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  in 
order  to  defend  myself  against  the  inferences  which  the  hon- 
ourable member  has  chosen  to  draw  from  my  former  observa- 
tions on  that  subject,  I  am  not  willing  now  entirely  to  take 
leave  of  it  without  another  remark.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that 
that  paper  expresses  just  sentiments  on  the  great  subject  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty.  Such  sentiments  were  common,  and 
abound  in  all  our  State  papers  of  that  day.  But  this  Ordinance 
did  that  which  was  not  so  common,  and  which  is  not  even  now 
universal ;  that  is,  it  set  forth  and  declared  it  a  high  and  bind- 
ing duty  of  government  itself  to  support  schools,  and  advance 
the  means  of  education,  on  the  plain  reason  that  religion,  mo- 
rality, and  knowledge  are  necessary  to  good  government,  and  to 
the  happiness  of  mankind.  One  observation  further.  The  im- 
portant provision  incorporated  into  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  several  of  those  of  the  States,  and  recently 
adopted  into  the  reformed  constitution  of  Virginia,  restraining 
lative  power  in  questions  of  private  right,  and  from  impair- 
ing the  obligation  of  contracts,  is  first  introduced  and  estab- 
lished, as  far  as  I  uin  informed,  .1s  matter  of  express  written 
constitutional  law,  in  this  Ordinance  of  1787.  And  I  must  add, 
also,  in  regard  to  the  author  of  the  Ordinance,  who  has  not  had 
the  happiness  to  attract  the  gentleman's  notice  heretofore,  nor 
to  avoid  his  sarcasm  now,  that  ho  was  chairman  of  that  select 
committee  of  the  old  Congress  whose  report  first  expressed  the 
strong  sense  of  that  body,  that  the  old  Confederation  was  not 
adequate  to  the  exigencies  of  the  country,  and  recommending 


344  WEBSTER. 

to  the  States  to  send  delegates  to  the  convention  which  formed 
the  present  Constitution. 

But  the  honourable  member  has  now  found  out  that  this  gen- 
tleman, Mr.  Dane,  was  a  member  of  the  Hartford  Convention.7 
However  uninformed  the  honourable  member  may  be  of  charac- 
ters and  occurrences  at  the  North,  it  would  seem  that  he  has  at 
his  elbow,  on  this  occasion,  some  high-minded  and  lofty  spirit, 
some  magnanimous  and  true-hearted  monitor,  possessing  the 
means  of  local  knowledge,  and  ready  to  supply  the  honourable 
member  with  every  thing,  down  even  to  forgotten  and  moth- 
eaten  two-penny  pamphlets,  which  may  be  used  to  the  disad- 
vantage of  his  own  country.  But,  as  to  the  Hartford  Conven- 
tion, Sir,  allow  me  to  say,  that  the  proceedings  of  that  body 
seem  now  to  be  less  read  and  studied  in  Now  England  than 
further  south.  They  appear  to  be  looked  to,  not  in  New  Eng- 
land, but  elsewhere,  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  how  far  they 
may  serve  as  a  precedent.  But  they  will  not  answer  the  pur- 
pose ;  they  are  quite  too  tame.  The  latitude  in  which  they 
original IM!  was  too  cold.  Other  conventions,  of  more  recent  ex- 
istence, have  gone  a  whole  bar's  length  beyond  it.  The  learned 
doctors  of  Colleton  and  Abbeville  have  pushed  their  commen- 
taries on  the  Hartford  collect  so  far,  that  the  original  text- 
writers  are  thrown  entirely  into  the  shade.  I  have  nothing  to 
do,  Sir,  with  the  Hartford  Convention.  Its  journal,  which  the 
gentleman  has  quoted,  I  never  read.  So  far  as  the  honourable 
member  may  discover  in  its  proceedings  a  spirit  in  any  degree 
resembling  that  which  was  avowed  and  justified  in  those  other 
conventions  to  which  I  have  alluded,  or  so  far  as  those  pro- 
ceedings can  be  shown  to  be  disloyal  to  the  Constitution,  or 
tending  to  disunion,  so  far  I  shall  be  as  ready  as  any  one  to  be- 
stow on  them  reprehension  and  censure. 

Having  dwelt  long  on  this  Convention,  and  other  occurrences 
of  that  day,  in  the  hope,  probably,  (which  will  not  be  gratified,) 
that  I  should  leave  the  course  of  this  debate  to  follow  him  at 
length  in  those  excursions,  the  honourable  member  returned, 
and  attempted  another  object.  He  referred  to  a  speech  of 
mine  in  the  other  House,  the  same  which  I  had  occasion  to 
allude  to  myself,  the  other  day ;  and  has  quoted  a  passage  or 
two  from  it,  with  a  bold  though  uneasy  and  labouring  air  of 

7  The  Ilartfovd  Convention  was  an  assembly  of  delegates  from  some  of  the 
New  England  istates,  which  met  at  Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  the  Winter  of 
1814-13,  and  sat  with  closed  doors.  The  members  were  men  of  high  personal 
character,  belonging  to  the  old  Federal  party,  and  were  strongly  opposed  to  the 
war  then  pending  with  Great  Britain ;  which  brought  upon  them  the  reproach 
of  having  met  for  the  treasonable  purpose  of  withdrawing  the  New  England 
States  from  the  Union. 


SPEECH   IN   EEPLY   TO   HAYXE.  345 

confidence,  as  if  he  had  detected  in  me  an  inconsistency.  Judg- 
ing from  the  gentleman's  manner,  a  stranger  to  the  course  of 
the  debate  and  to  the  point  in  discussion  would  have  imagined, 
from  so  triumphant  a  tone,  that  the  honourable  member  was 
about  to  overwhelm  me  with  a  manifest  contradiction.  Any 
one  who  heard  him,  and  who  had  not  heard  what  I  had,  in  fact, 
previously  said,  must  have  thought  me  routed  and  discomfited, 
as  the  gentleman  had  promised.  Sir,  a  breath  blows  all  this 
triumph  away.  There  is  not  the  slightest  difference  in  the  sen- 
timents of  my  remarks  on  the  two  occasions.  What  I  said  here 
on  Wednesday  is  in  exact  accordance  with  the  opinion  ex- 
pressed by  me  in  the  other  House  in  1825.  Though  the  gentle- 
man had  the  metaphysics  of  Hudibras,  though  he  were  able 

"  to  sever  and  divide 
A  hair  'twixt  north  and  northwest  side," 

he  yet  could  not  insert  his  metaphysical  scissors  between  the 
fair  reading  of  my  remarks  in  1825,  and  what  I  said  here  last 
week.  There  is  not  only  no  contradiction,  no  difference,  but,  in 
truth,  too  exact  a  similarity,  both  in  thought  and  language,  to 
be  entirely  in  just  taste.  I  had  myself  quoted  the  same  speech ; 
had  recurred  to  it,  and  spoke  with  it  open  before  me  ;  and  much 
of  what  I  said  was  little  more  than  a  repetition  from  it. 

I  need  not  repeat  at  large  the  general  topics  of  the  honoura- 
ble gentleman's  speech.  When  he  said  yesterday  that  he  did 
not  attack  the  Eastern  States,  he  certainly  must  have  forgotten, 
not  only  particular  remarks,  but  the  whole  drift  and  tenour  of 
his  speech  ;  unless  he  means,  by  not  attacking,  that  he  did  not 
commence  hostilities,  but  that  another  had  preceded  him  in 
the  attack.  He,  in  the  first  place,  disapproved  of  the  whole 
course  of  the  government,  for  forty  years,  in  regard  to  its  dis- 
position of  the  public  lands  ;  and  then,  turning  northward  and 
eastward,  and  fancying  he  had  found  a  cause  for  alleged  nar- 
rowness and  niggardliness  in  the  "accursed  policy"  of  the 
tariff,  to  which  he  represented  the  people  of  New  England  as 
wodded,  he  went  on  for  a  full  hour  with  remarks,  the  whole 
scope  of  which  was  to  exhibit  the  results  of  this  policy,  in 
fct-lings  and  in  measures  unfavourable  to  the  West.  1  thought 
his  opinions  unfounded  and  erroneous,  as  to  the  general  course 
of  Hie  government,  and  ventured  to  reply  to  them. 

The  gentleman  had  remarked  on  the  analogy  of  other  cases, 
and  quoted  the  conduct  of  European  governments  towards 
their  own  subjects  settling  on  this  continent,  as  in  point,  to 
show  that  we  had  been  hard  and  rigid  in  selling,  when  we 
should  have  given  the  public  lands  to  settlers  without  price. 


346  WEBSTER. 

I  thought  the  honourable  member  had  suffered  his  judgment 
to  be  betrayed  by  a  false  analogy;  that' he  was  struck  with  an 
appearance  of  resemblance  whore  there  was  no  real  similitude. 
I  think  so  still.  The  first  settlers  of  North  America  wore 
enterprising  spirits,  engaged  in  private  adventure,  or  fleeing 
from  tyranny  at  home.  When  arrived  here,  they  were  for- 
gotten by  the  mother  country,  or  remembered  only  to  be  op- 
pressed. Carried  away  again  by  the  appearance  of  analogy,  or 
struck  with  the  eloquence  of  the  passage,  the  honourable; 
member  yesterday  observed  that  the  conduct  of  government 
towards  the  Western  emigrants,  or  my  representation  of  it, 
brought  to  his  mind  a  celebrated  speech  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment. It  was,  Sir,  the  speech  of  Colonel  Barre.  On  the  ques- 
tion of  the  Stamp  Act,  <>r  f»-a  tax,  I  forget  which,  Colonel 
Barre  had  heard  a  member  on  the  treasury  bench  argue  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  being  British  colonists,  planted 
by  the  maternal  care,  nourished  by  the  indulgence  and  pro- 
tected by  the  arms  of  England,  would  not  grudge  their  mite  to 
relieve  the  mother  country  from  the  heavy  burden  under  which 
she  groaned.  The  language  of  Colonel  Barre,  in  reply  to  this, 
was,  "They  planted  by  your  care  !  Your  oppression  planted 
them  in  America.  They  lied  from  your  tyranny,  and  grew  by 
your  neglect  of  them.  So  soon  as  you  began  to  care  for  theni, 
you  showed  your  can-  by  sending  persons  to  spy  out  their  liber- 
ties, misrepresent  their  character,  prey  upon  them,  and  eat  out 
their  substance." 

And  how  does  the  honourable  gentleman  mean  to  maintain 
that  language  like  this  is  applicable  to  the  conduct  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  towards  the  Western  emigrants, 
or  to  any  representation  given  by  me  of  that  conduct?  Were 
the  settlers  in  the  West  driven  thither  by  our  oppression? 
Have  they  flourished  only  by  our  neglect  of  them?  Has 
the  government  done  nothing  but  prey  upon  them,  and  eat 
out  their  substance?  Sir,  this  fervid  eloquence  of  the  Brit- 
ish speaker,  just,  when  and  where  it  was  uttered,  and  fit  to 
remain  an  exercise  for  the  schools,  is  not  a  little  out  of  place, 
when  it  is  brought  thence  to  be  applied  here  to  the  conduct  of 
our  own  country  towards  her  own  citizens.  From  America  to 
England,  it  may  be  true  ;  from  Americans  to  their  own  govern- 
ment, it  would  be  strange  language.  Let  us  leave  it,  to  be 
recited  and  declaimed  by  our  boys  against  a  foreign  nation  ; 
not  introduce  it  here,  to  recite  and  declaim  ourselves  against 
our  own. 

But  I  come  to  the  point  of  the  alleged  contradiction.  In  my 
remarks  on  Wednesday,  I  contended  that  we  could  not  give 
away  gratuitously  all  the  public  lands ;  that  we  held  them  in 


SPEECH    IX   REPLY   TO   IIAYXE.  347 

trust;  that  the  government  had  solemnly  pledged  itself  to 
dispose  of  them  as  a  common  fund  for  the  common  benefit,  and 
to  sell  and  settle  them  as  its  discretion  should  dictate.  Now, 
Sir,  what  contradiction  does  the  gentleman  find  to  this  senti- 
ment in  the  speech  of  1825?  He  quotes  me  as  having  then  said 
that  we  ought  not  to  hug  these  lands  as  a  very  great  treasure. 
Very  well,  Sir,  supposing  me  to  be  accurately  reported  in  that 
expression,  what  is  the  contradiction?  I  have  not  now  said 
that  we  should  hug  these  lands  as  a  favourite  source  of  pecu- 
niary income.  No  such  thing.  It  is  not  my  view.  What  I 
have  said,  and  what  I  do  say,  is,  that  they  are  a  common  fund, 
to  be  disposed  of  for  the  common  benefit,  to  be  sold  at  low 
prices  for  the  accommodation  of  settlers,  keeping  the  object  of 
settling  the  lands  as  much  in  view  as  that  of  raising  nioney 
from  thorn.  This  I  say  now,  and  this  I  have  always  said.  Is 
this  hugging  them  as  a  favourite  treasure?  Is  then1  no  differ- 
ence between  hugging  and  hoarding  this  fund,  on  the  one  hand, 
as  a  great  treasure,  and,  on  the  other,  disposing  of  it  at  low 
prices,  placing  the.  proceeds  in  the  general  treasury  of  the 
Union?  My  opinion  is,  that  as  much  is  to  be  made  of  the 
land  as  fairly  and  reasonably  may  be,  selling  it  all  the  while  at 
such  rates  as  to  give  the  fullest  effect  to  settlement.  This  is 
not  giving  it  all  away  to  the  Slates,  as  the  gentleman  would 
propose  ;  nor  is  it  hugging  the  fund  closely  and  tenaciously,  as 
a  favourite  treasure  ;  but  it  is,  in  my  judgment,  a  just  and  wise, 
policy,  perfectly  according  with  all  the  various  duties  which 
rest  on  government.  So  much  for  my  contradiction.  And 
what  is  it  ?  AY  here  is  the  ground  of  the  gentleman's  triumph  ? 
What  inconsistency  in  word  or  doctrine  has  he  been  able  to 
detect  ?  Sir,  if  this  ho  a  sample  of  that  discomfiture  with  which 
the  honourable  gentleman  threatened  me,  commend  me  to  the 
word  ilifif-Diujlturc  for  the  rest  of  my  life. 

We  approach,  at  length,  Sir,  to  a  more  important  part  of  the 
honourable  gentleman's  observations.  Since  it  does  not  accord 
with  my  views  of  justice  and  policy  to  give  away  the  public 
lands  altogether,  as  mere  matter  of  gratuity,  I  am  asked  by  the. 
honourable  gentleman  on  what  ground  it  is  that  I  consent  to 
voto  them  away  in  particular  instances.  How,  he  inquires,  do 
i  reconcile,  with  these,  professed  sentiments  my  support  of  meas- 
ures appropriating  portions  of  the  lands  to  particular  roads, 
particular  canals,  particular  rivers,  'and  particular  institutions 
of  education  in  the  West  ?  This  leads,  Sir,  to  the  real  and  wide 
difference  in  political  opinion  between  the  honourable  gentle- 
man and  myself.  On  my  part,  1  look  upon  all  these  objects  as 
connected  with  the  common  good,  fairly  embraced  in  its  object 
and  its  terms:  he,  on  the  contrary,  deems  them  all,  if  good  at 


348  WEBSTER. 

all,  only  local  good.  This  is  our  difference.  The  interrogatory 
which  he  proceeded  to  put  at  once  explains  this  difference. 
"What  interest,"  asks  he,  "has  South  Carolina  in  a  canal  in 
Ohio?"  Sir,  this  very  question  is  full  of  significance.  It  de- 
velops the  gentleman's  whole  political  system  ;  and  its  answer 
expounds  mine.  Here  we  differ.  I  look  upon  a  road  over  the 
Alleghany,  a  canal  round  the  falls  of  the  Ohio,  or  a  canal  or 
railway  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Western  waters,  as  being  an 
object  largo  and  extensive  enough  to  be  fairly  said  to  be  for  the 
common  benefit.  The  gentleman  thinks  otherwise,  and  this  is 
the  key  to  his  construction  of  the  powers  of  the  government. 
He  may  well  ask  what  interest  has  South  Carolina  in  a  canal  in 
Ohio.  On  his  system,  it  is  true,  she  has  no  interest,  On  that 
system,  Ohio  and  Carolina  are  different  governments,  and  differ- 
ent countries  ;  connected  here,  it  is  true,  by  some  slight  and  ill- 
defined  bond  of  union,  but,  in  all  main  respects,  separate  and 
diverse.  On  that  system,  Carolina  has  no  more  interest  in  a 
canal  in  Ohio  than  in  Mexico.  The  gentleman  therefore  only 
follows  out  his  own  principles  ;  he  dors  no  more  than  arrive  at 
the  natural  conclusions  of  his  own  doctrines:  he  only  announces 
the  true  results  of  that  creed  which  he  has  adopted  himself,  and 
would  persuade  others  to  adopt,  when  he  thus  declares  that 
South  Carolina  has  no  interest  in  a  public  work  in  Ohio. 

Sir,  we  narrow-minded  people  of  New  England  do  not  reason 
thus.  Our  notion  of  things  is  entirely  different.  We  look  upon 
the  States,  not  as  separated,  but  as  united.  We  love  to  dwell 
on  that  union,  and  on  the  mutual  happiness  which  it  has  so 
much  promoted,  and  the  common  renown  which  it  has  so  greatly 
contributed  to  acquire.  In  our  contemplation,  Carolina  and 
Ohio  are  parts  of  the  same  country  ;  States,  united  under  the 
same  general  government,  having  interests  common,  associated, 
intermingled.  In  whatever  is  within  the  proper  sphere  of  the 
constitutional  power  of  this  government,  we  look  upon  the 
States  as  one.  We  do  not  impose  geographical  limits  to  our 
patriotic  feeling  or  regard  ;  we  do  not  follow  rivers  and  moun- 
tains, and  lines  of  latitude,  to  find  boundaries,  beyond  which 
public  improvements  do  not  benefit  us.  We  who  come  hero,  as 
agents  and  representatives  of  these  narrow-minded  and  selfish 
men  of  New  England,  consider  ourselves  as  bound  to  regard 
with  an  equal  eye  the  good  of  the  whole,  in  whatever  is  within 
our  powers  of  legislation.  Sir,  if  a  railroad  or  canal,  beginning 
in  South  Carolina  and  ending  in  South  Carolina,  appeared  to  me 
to  be  of  national  importance  and  national  magnitude,  believing, 
as  I  do,  that  the  power  of  government  extends  to  the  encour- 
agement of  works  of  that  description,  if  I  were  to  stand  up  heft- , 
and  ask,  What  interest  has  Massachusetts  in  a  railroad  in  South 


SPEECH   Itf   EEPLY  TO   HAYNE.  349 

Carolina?  I  should  not  be  willing  to  face  my  constituents. 
These  same  narrow-minded  men  would  tell  me  that  they  had 
sent  me  to  act  for  the  whole  country,  and  that  one  who  pos- 
sessed too  little  comprehension,  either  of  intellect  or  feeling, 
one  who  was  not  large  enough,  both  in  mind  and  in  heart,  to 
embrace  the  whole,  was  not  fit  to  be  entrusted  with  the  interest 
of  any  part. 

Sir,  I  do  not  desire  to  enlarge  the  powers  of  the  government 
by  unjustifiable  construction,  nor  to  exercise  any  not  within  a 
fair  interpretation.  But  when  it  is  believed  that  a  power  does 
exist,  then  it  is,  in  my  judgment,  to  be  exercised  for  the  general 
benefit  of  the  whole.  So  far  as  respects  the  exercise  of  such  a 
power,  the  States  are  one.  It  was  the  very  object  of  the  Consti- 
tution to  create  unity  of  interests  to  the  extent  of  the  powers  of 
the  general  government.  In  war  and  peace  we  are  one  ;  in 
commerce,  one ;  because  the  authority  of  the  general  govern, 
mcnt  rearhrs  to  war  and  peace,  and  to  the  regulation  of  com- 
merce. I  have  never  seen  any  more  difficulty  in  erecting  light- 
houses on  the  lakes  than  on  the  ocean  ;  in  improving  the  har- 
bours of  inland  seas  than  if  they  were  within  the  el>!>  and  llow 
of  the  tide;  or  of  removing  obstructions  in  the  vast  streams  of 
the  West,  more  than  in  any  work  to  facilitate  commerce  on  the 
Atlantic  coast.  If  there  be  any  power  for  one,  there  is  power 
also  for  the  other  ;  and  they  are  all  and  equally  for  the  common 
good  of  the  country. 

There  are  other  objects,  apparently  more  local,  or  the  bene- 
fit of  which  is  less  general,  towards  which,  nevertheless,  I  have 
concurred  with  others,  1<>  give  aid  by  donations  of  land.  It  is 
proposed  to  construct  a  road  in  or  through  one  of  the  new 
States,  in  which  this  government  possesses  large  quantities  of 
land.  Have  the  United  States  no  right,  or,  as  a  great  and  un- 
taxed  proprietor,  are  they  under  no  obligation  to  contribute  to 
an  object  thus  calculated  to  promote  the  common  good  of  all 
the  proprietors,  themselves  included?  Arid  even  with  respect 
to  education,  which  is  the  extreme  case,  let  the  question  be 
considered.  In  the  first  place,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  made 
matter  of  compact  with  these  States,  that  they  should  do  their 
part  to  promote  education.  In  the  next  place,  our  whole  sys- 
tem of  land  laws  proceeds  on  the  idea  that  education  is  for  the 
common  good ;  because,  in  every  division,  a  certain  portion  is 
uniformly  reserved  and  appropriated  for  the  use  of  schools. 
And,  finally,  have  not  these  new  States  singularly  strong 
claims,  founded  on  the  ground  already  stated,  that  the  govern- 
ment is  a  great  untaxed  proprietor,  in  the  ownership  of  the 
soil  y  It  is  a  consideration  of  great  importance,  that  probably 
there  is  in  no  part  of  the  country,  or  of  the  world,  so  great  call 


350  WEBSTER. 

for  the  moans  of  education  as  in  those  new  States,  owing  to  the 
vast  numbers  of  persons  within  those  ages  in  which  education 
and  instruction  are  usually  received,  if  received  at  all.  This 
is  the  natural  consequence  of  recency  of  settlement  and  rapid 
increase.  The  census  of  these  States  shows  how  great  a  pro- 
portion of  the  whole  population  occupies  the  classes  bet \vt-eii 
infancy  and  manhood.  These  are  the  wide  fields,  and  here  is 
the  deep  and  quick  soil  for  the  seeds  of  knowledge  and  virtue  ; 
and  this  is  the  favoured  season,  the  very  spring-time,  for  sowing 
them.  Let  them  be  disseminated  without  stint.  Let  them  be 
scattered  with  a  bountiful  hand,  broadcast.  Whatever  the  gov- 
ernment can  fairly  do  towards  these  objects,  in  my  opinion, 
ought  to  be  done. 

These,  Sir,  are  the  grounds,  succinctly  stated,  on  which  my 
votes  for  grants  of  lands  for  particular  objects  rest ;  while  I 
maintain,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  is  all  a  common  fund,  for  the 
common  benefit.  And  reasons  like  these,  I  presume,  have  in- 
fluenced the  votes  of  other  gentlemen  from  Xew  England. 
Those  who  have  a  different  view  of  the  powers  of  the  govern- 
ment, of  course,  come  to  different  conclusions,  on  these,  as  on 
other  questions.  I  observed,  when  speaking  on  this  subject  lie- 
fore,  that  if  we  looked  to  any  measure,  whether  for  a  road,  a 
canal,  or  any  thing  else,  intended  for  the  improvement  of  the 
West,  it  would  be  found  that,  if  the  Xew  England  ayes  were 
struck  out  of  the  lists  of  votes,  the  Southern  noes  would  always 
have  rejected  the  measure.  The  truth  of  this  has  not  been 
denied,  and  cannot  be  denied.  In  stating  this,  I  thought  it  just 
to  ascribe  it  to  the  constitutional  scruples  of  the  South,  rather 
than  to  any  other  less  favourable  or  less  charitable  cause.  But 
no  sooner  had  I  done  this,  than  the  honourable  gentleman  asks 
if  I  reproach  him  and  his  friends  with  their  constitutional  scru- 
ples. Sir,  I  reproach  nobody.  I  stated  a  fact,  and  gave  the 
most  respectful  reason  for  it  that  occurred  to  me.  The  gentle- 
man cannot  deny  the  fact ;  he  may,  if  he  choose,  disclaim  the 
reason.  It  is  not  long  since  I  had  occasion,  in  presenting  a  peti- 
tion from  his  own  State,  to  account  for  its  being  intrusted  to 
my  hands,  by  saying  that  the  constitutional  opinions  of  the 
gentleman  and  his  worthy  colleague  prevented  them  from  sup- 
porting it.  Sir,  did  I  state  this  as  matter  of  reproach?  Far 
from  it.  Bid  I  attempt  to  find  any  other  cause  than  an  honest 
one  for  these  scruples  ?  Sir,  I  did  not.  It  did  not  become  me 
to  doubt  or  to  insinuate  that  the  gentleman  had  either  changed 
hi-*  sentiments,  or  that  he  had  made  up  a  set  of  constitutional 
opinions  accommodated  to  any  particular  combination  of  politi- 
cal occurrences.  Had  I  done  so,  I  should  have  felt  that,  while 
I  was  entitled  to  little  credit  in  thus  questioning  other  people's 


SPEECH   IN   REPLY  TO  HAYNE.  351 

motives,  I  justified  the  whole  world  in  suspecting  my  own. 
But  how  has  the  gentleman  returned  this  respect  for  others' 
opinions  ?  His  own  candour  and  justice,  how  have  they  been 
exhibited  towards  the  motives  of  others,  while  he  has  been  at 
so  much  pains  to  maintain,  what  nobody  has  disputed,  the 
purity  of  his  own  ? 

This  government,  Mr.  President,  from  its  origin  to  the  peace 
of  1815,  had  been  too  much  engrossed  with  various  other  im- 
portant concerns  to  be  able  to  turn  its  thoughts  inward,  and 
look  to  the  development  of  its  vast  internal  resources.  In  the 
early  part  of  President  Washington's  administration,  it  was 
fully  occupied  with  completing  its  own  organization,  providing 
for  the  public  debt,  defending  the  frontiers,  and  maintaining 
domestic  peace.  Before  the  termination  of  that  administration, 
the  fires  of  the  French  Revolution  blazed  forth,  as  from  a  new- 
opened  volcano,  and  the  whole  breadth  of  the  ocean  did  not 
secure  us  from  its  effects.  The  smoke  and  the  cinders  reached 
us,  though  not  the  burning  lava.  Difficult  and  agitating  ques- 
tions, embarrassing  to  government,  and  dividing  public  opinion, 
sprung  out  of  the  new  state  of  our  foreign  relations,  and  were 
succeeded  by  others,  and  yot  again  by  others,  equally  embar- 
rassing, and  equally  exciting  division  and  discord,  through  tho 
long  series  of  twenty  years,  till  they  finally  issued  in  the  war 
with  England.  Down  to  the  close  of  that  war,  no  distitu-f, 
marked,  and  deliberate  attention  had  been  given,  or  could  have 
been  given,  to  the  internal  condition  of  the  country,  its  capaci- 
ties of  improvement,  or  the  constitutional  power  of  the  govern- 
ment in  regard  to  objects  connected  with  such  improvement. 

The  peace,  Mr.  President,  brought  about  an  entirely  new  and 
a  most  interesting  state  of  things:  it  opened  to  us  other  pros- 
poets,  and  suggested  other  duties.  We  ourselves  wen-  changed, 
and  the  whole  world  was  changed.  The  pacification  of  Europe, 
after  June,  1815,  assumed  a  firm  and  permanent  aspect,  Tho 
nations  evidently  manifested  that  they  were  disposed  for  peace. 
Some  agitation  of  the  waves  might  be  expected,  even  after  tin; 
storm  had  subsided,  but  the  tendency  was,  strongly  and  rapidly, 
towards  settled  repose. 

It  so  happened,  Sir,  that  I  was  at  that  time  a  member  of  Con- 
gress, and,  like  others,  naturally  turned  my  thoughts  to  the  con- 
templation of  the  recently-altered  condition  of  the  country  and 
of  the  world.  It  appeared  plainly  enough  to  me,  as  well  as  to 
wiser  and  more  experienced  men,  that  the  policy  of  the  govern- 
ment would  naturally  take  a  start  in  a  new  direction  ;  IKM-UUSC 
new  directions  would  necessarily  be  given  to  the  pursuits  and 
Occupations  of  the  people.  We  had  pushed  our  commerce  far 
and  fast,  under  the  advantage  of  a  neutral  flag.  But  there  were 


352  WEBSTER. 

now  no  longer  flags  either  neutral  or  belligerent.  The  harvest 
of  neutrality  had  been  great,  but  we  had  gathered  it  all.  With 
the  peace  of  Europe,  it  was  obvious  there  would  spring  up  in 
her  circle  of  nations  a  revived  and  invigorated  spirit  of  trade, 
and  a  new  activity  in  all  the  business  and  objects  of  civilized 
life.  Hereafter,  our  commercial  gains  were  to  be  earned  only 
by  success  in  a  close  and  intense  competition.  Other  nations 
would  produce  for  themselves,  and  carry  for  themselves,  and 
manufacture  for  themselves,  to  the  full  extent  of  their  abilities. 
The  crops  of  our  plains  would  no  longer  sustain  European  ar- 
mies, nor  our  ships  longer  supply  those  whom  war  had  rendered 
unable  to  supply  themselves.  It  was  obvious  that,  under  these 
chvnmst;in<vs,  the  country  would  begin  to  survey  itself,  and  to 
estimate  its  own  capacity  of  improvement. 

And  this  improvement,  how  was  it  to  be  accomplished,  and 
who  was  to  accomplish  it?  We  were  ten  or  twelve  millions  of 
people,  spread  over  almost  half  a  world.  We  were  more  than 
twenty  States,  some  stretching  along  the  same  seaboard,  some 
along  the  same  line  of  inland  frontier,  and  others  on  opposite 
banks  of  the  same  vast  rivers.  Two  considerations  at  once  pre- 
sented themselves,  in  looking  at  this  state  of  things,  with  great 
force.  One  was,  that  that  great  branch  of  improvement  which 
consisted  in  furnishing  new  facilities  of  intercourse  necessarily 
ran  into  different  States  in  every  leading  instance,  and  would 
benefit  the  citizens  of  all  such  States.  No  one  State  therefore, 
in  such  cases,  would  assume  the  whole  expense,  nor  was  the 
cooperation  ot  several  States  to  be  expected.  Take  the  instance 
of  the  Delaware  breakwater.  Jt  will  cost  several  millions  of 
money.  Would  Pennsylvania  alone  ever  have  constructed  it? 
Certainly  never,  while  this  Union  lasts,  because  it  is  not  for  her 
sole  beneiit.  Would  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  Delaware 
have  united  to  accomplish  it  at  their  joint  expense  ?  Certain  ly 
not^  for  the  same  reason.  It  could  not  be  done,  therefore,  but 
by  the  general  government.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  large 
inland  undertakings,  except  that,  in  them,  government,  instead 
of  bearing  the  whole  expense,  cooperates  with  others  who  bear 
a  part.  The  other  consideration  is,  that  the  United  States  have 
the  means.  They  enjoy  the  revenues  derived  from  commerce, 
and  the  States  have  no  abundant  and  easy  sources  of  public  in- 
come. The  custom-houses  fill  the  general  treasury,  while  the 
States  have  scanty  resources,  except  by  resort  to  heavy  direct 
taxes. 

Under  this  view  of  things,  I  thought  it  necessary  to  settle,  at 
least  for  myself,  some  definite  notions  with  respect  to  the  pow- 
ers of  the  government  in  regard  to  internal  affairs.  It  may  not 
savour  too  much  of  self-commendation  to  remark  that,  with 


SPEECH  IX   REPLY  TO  HAYtfE.  353 

this  object,  I  considered  the  Constitution,  its  judicial  construc- 
tion, its  contemporaneous  exposition,  and  the  whole  history  of 
the  legislation  of  Congress  under  it ;  and  I  arrived  at  the  con- 
clusion that  government  had  power  to  accomplish  sundry  ob- 
jects, or  aid  in  their  accomplishment,  which  are  now  commonly 
spoken  of  as  INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS.  That  conclusion,  Sir, 
may  have  been  right,  or  it  may  have  been  wrong.  I  am  not 
about  to  argue  the  grounds  of  it  at  large.  I  say  only  that  it  was 
adopted  and  acted  on  even  so  early  as  in  1810.  Yes,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, I  made  up  my  opinion,  and  determined  on  my  intended 
course  of  political  conduct,  on  these  subjects,  in  the  Fourteenth 
Congress,  in  1816.  And  now,  Mr.  President,  I  have  further  to 
say,  that  I  made  up  these  opinions,  and  entered  on  this  course 
of  political  conduct,  Teucro  duce*  Yes,  Sir,  I  pursued,  in  all 
this,  a  South  Carolina  track  on  the  doctrines  of  internal  im- 
provement. South  Carolina,  as  she  was  then  represented  in 
the  other  House,  set  forth  in  1810  under  a  fresh  and  leading 
briM'/e,  and  I  was  among  the  followers.  But  if  my  leader  sees 
new  lights,  and  turns  a  sharp  corner,  unless  I  see  new  lights 
also,  I  keep  straight  on  in  the  same  path.  I  repeat,  that  leading 
gentlemen  from  South  Carolina  were  first  and  foremost  in  be- 
half of  the  doctrines  of  internal  improvement,  when  those  doc- 
trines came  first  to  be  considered  and  acted  upon  in  Congress. 
The  debate  on  the  bank  question,  on  the  tariff  of  1810,  and  on 
the  direct  tax,  will  show  who  was  who,  and  what  was  what,  at 
that  time. 

The  tariff  of  1816  (one  of  the  plain  cases  of  oppression  and 
usurpation,  from  which  if  the  government  does  not  recede,  in- 
dividual States  may  justly  secede  from  the  government)  is,  Sir, 
in  truth,  a  South  Carolina  tariff,  supported  by  South  Carolina 
votes.  But  for  those  votes,  it  could  not  have  passed  in  the  form 
in  which  it  did  pass  ;  whereas,  if  it  had  depended  on  Massachu- 
setts votes,  it  would  have  been  lost.  Does  not  the  honourable 
gentleman  well  know  all  this?  There  are  certainly  those  who 
do,  full  well,  know  it  all.  I  do  not  say  this  to  reproach  South 
Carolina.  I  only  state  the  fact ;  and  I  think  it  will  appear  to  be 
true,  that  among  the  earliest  and  boldest  advocates  of  the  tariff, 
as  a  measure  of  protection,  and  on  the  express  ground  of  pro- 
t«M-tion,  wore  leading  gentlemen  of  South  Carolina  in  Congress. 
I  did  not  then,  and  cannot  now,  understand  their  language  in 
any  other  sci^c.  While  this  tariff  of  1810  was  under  discussion 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  an  honourable  gentleman 
from  Georgia,  now  of  this  House,  moved  to  reduce  the  proposed 

8  Alluding  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  who,  at  the  turn;  this  speech  was  made,  was  Vice- 
President  ot'lhe  United  States,  and  of  course  President  of  the  Senate. 


354  WEBSTER. 

duty  on  cotton.  He  failed,  by  four  votes,  South  Carolina  giving 
three  votes  (enough  to  have  turned  the  scale)  against  his  mo- 
tion. The  Act,  Sir,  then  passed,  and  received  on  its  passage  the 
support  of  a  majority  of  the  representatives  of  South  Carolina 
present  and  voting.  This  Act  is  the  first  in  the  order  of  those 
now  denounced  as  plain  usurpations.  We  see  it  daily  in  the 
list,  by  the  side  of  those  of  1824  and  1828,  as  a  case  of  manifest 
oppression,  justifying  disunion.  I  put  it  home  to  the  honour- 
able member  from  South  Carolina,  that  his  own  State  was  not 
only  "art  and  part"  in  this  measure,  but  the  causa  cauxans. 
Without  her  aid,  this  seminal  principle  of  mischief,  this  root  of 
Vpas,  could  not  have  been  planted.  I  have  already  said,  and  it 
is  true,  that  th!.s  Act  proceeded  on  the  ground  of  protection.  It 
interfered  directly  with  existing  interests  of  great  value  and 
amount.  It  cut  up  the  Calcutta  cotton  trade  by  the  roots  ;  but 
it  passed  nevertheless,  and  it  passed  on  the  principle  of  protect- 
ing manufactures,  on  the  principle  against  free  trade,  on  the 
principle  opposed  to  that  which  /*7.s  us  alone. 

Such,  Mr.  President,  were  the  opinions  of  important  and  lead- 
ing gentlemen  from  South  Carolina,  on  the  subject  of  internal' 
improvement,  in  1816.  I  went  out  of  Congress  the  next  year; 
and,  returning  again  in  1823,  thought  1  found  South  Carolina 
where  I  had  left  her.  I  really  supposed  that  all  things  remained 
as  they  were,  and  that  the  South  Carolina  doctrine  of  internal 
improvements  would  be  defended  by  the  same  eloquent  voices, 
and  the  same  strong  arms,  as  formerly.  In  the  lapse  of  these 
six  years,  it  is  true,  political  associations  had  assumed  a  new 
aspect  and  new  divisions.  A  party  had  arisen  in  the  South 
hostile  to  the  doctrine  of  internal  improvements,  and  had  vig- 
orously attacked  that  doctrine.  Anti-consolidation  was  the  Hag 
under  which  this  party  fought ;  and  its  supporters  inveighed 
against  internal  improvements,  much  after  the  manner  in  which 
the  honourable  gentleman  has  now  inveighed  against  them,  as 
part  and  parcel  of  the  system  of  consolidation.  Whether  this 
party  arose  in  South  Carolina  herself,  or  in  her  neighbourhood, 
is  more  than  I  know.  I  think  the  latter.  However  that  may 
li:ive  been,  there  were  those  found  in  South  Carolina  ready  to 
make  war  upon  it,  and  who  did  make  intrepid  war  upon  it. 
jS'ames  being  regarded  as  things  in  such  controversies,  they 
bestowed  on  the  anti-improvement  gentlemen  the  appellation 
of  Radicals.  Yes,  Sir,  the  appellation  of  Radicals,  as  a  term  of 
distinction,  applicable  and  applied  to  those  who  denied  the  lib- 
eral doctrines  of  internal  improvement,  originated,  according 
to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  somewhere  between  North  Caro- 
lina and  Georgia.  Well,  Sir,  these  mischievous  Radicals  were 
to  be  put  down,  and  the  strong  arm  of  South  Carolina  was 


SPEECH  IK  EEPLY  TO  HAYNE.  355 

stretched  out  to  put  them  down.  About  this  time,  Sir,  I  re- 
turned to  Congress.  The  battle  with  the  Radicals  had  been 
fought,  and  our  South  Carolina  champions  of  the  doctrines  of 
internal  improvement  had  nobly  maintained  their  ground,  and 
were  understood  to  have  achieved  a  victory.  We  looked  upon 
them  as  conquerors.  They  had  driven  back  the  enemy  with 
discomfiture, —  a  thing,  by  the  way,  Sir,  which  is  not  always 
performed  when  it  is  promised. 

The  tariff,  which  South  Carolina  had  an  efficient  hand  in 
establishing,  in  1810,  and  this  asserted  power  of  internal  im- 
provement, advanced  by  her  in  the  same  year,  and  approved 
and  sanctioned  by  her  representatives  in  1824,  these  two  meas- 
ures are  the  great  grounds  on  which  she  is  now  thought  to  be 
justified  in  breaking  up  the  Union,  if  she  sees  lit  to  break  it 
up ! 

I  go  to  other  remarks  of  the  honourable  member ;  and  I  have 
to  complain  of  an  entire  misapprehension  of  what  I  said  on  the 
subject  of  the  national  debt,  though  I  can  hardly  perceive  how 
any  one  could  misunderstand  me.  What  I  said  was,  not  that  I 
wished  to  put  off  the  payment  of  the  debt,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
that  I  had  always  voted  for  every  measure  for  its  reduction,  as 
uniformly  as  the  gentleman  himself.  He  seems  to  claim  the 
exclusive  merit  of  a  disposition  to  reduce  the  public  charge.  I 
do  not  allow  it  to  him.  As  a  debt,  I  was,  I  am  for  paying  it, 
because  it  is  a  charge  on  our  finances,  and  on  the  industry  of 
the  country.  But  I  observed,  that  I  thought  I  perceived  a  mor- 
bid fervour  on  .that  subject,  an  excessive  anxiety  to  pay  off  the 
debt,  not  so  much  because  it  is  a  debt  simply,  as  because,  while 
it  lasts,  it  furnishes  one  objection  to  disunion.  It  is,  while  it 
continues,  a  tie  of  common  interest.  I  did  not  impute  such 
motives  to  the  honourable  member  himself ;  but  that  there  is 
such  a  feeling  in  existence  I  have  not  a  particle  of  doubt.  The 
most  I  said  was,  that  if  one  effect  of  the  debt  was  to  strengthen 
our  Union,  that  effect  itself  was  not  regretted  by  me,  however 
much  others  might  regret  it.  The  gentleman  has  not  seen  how 
to  reply  to  this,  otherwise  than  by  supposing  me  to  have  ad- 
vanced the  doctrine  that  a  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing. 
Others,  I  must  hope,  will  find  much  less  difficulty  in  under- 
standing me.  I  distinctly  and  pointedly  cautioned  the  honour- 
able member  not  to  understand  me  as  expressing  an  opinion 
favourable  to  the  continuance  of  the  debt.  I  repeated  this 
caution,  and  repeated  it  more  than  once ;  but  it  was  thrown 
away. 

On  yet  another  point  I  was  still  more  unaccountably  misun- 
derstood. The  gentleman  had  harangued  against  "consolida- 
tion." I  told  him,  in  reply,  that  there  was  one  kind  of  consoli- 


356  WEBSTER. 

dation  to  which  I  was  attached,  and  that  was  the  CONSOLIDA- 
TION OF  OUR  UNION  ;  that  this  was  precisely  that  consolida- 
tion to  which  I  feared  others  were  not  attached  ;  and  that  such 
consolidation  was  the  very  end  of  the  Constitution,  the  leading 
object,  as  they  had  informed  us  themselves,  which  its  framers 
had  kept  in  view.  I  turned  to  their  communication,  and  read 
their  very  words,  "the  consolidation  of  the  Union,"  and  ex- 
pressed my  devotion  to  this  sort  of  consolidation.  I  said,  in 
terms,  that  I  wished  not  in  the  slightest  degree  to  augment  the 
powers  of  this  government ;  that  my  object  was  to  preserve, 
not  to  enlarge ;  and  that  by  consolidating  the  Union  I  under- 
stood no  more  than  the  strengthening  of  the  Union,  and  per- 
petuating it.  Having  been  thus  explicit,  having  thus  read  from 
the  printed  book  the  prcci.se  words  which  I  adopted,  as  express- 
ing my  own  sentiments,  it  passes  comprehension  how  any  man 
could  understand  me  as  contending  for  an  extension  of  the 
powers  of  the  government,  or  for  consolidation  in  that  odious 
sense  in  which  it  means  an  accumulation,  in  the  federal  gov- 
ernment, of  the  powers  properly  belonging  to  the  State.*. 

I  repeat,  Sir,  that,  in  adopting  the  sentiment  of  the  framers 
of  the  Constitution,  I  read  their  language  audibly,  and  word 
for  word ;  and  I  pointed  out  the  distinction,  just  as  fully  a<  I 
have  now  done,  between  the  consolidation  of  the  Union  and 
that  other  obnoxious  consolidation  which  I  disclaimed.  And 
yet  the  honourable  member  misunderstood  me.  The  gentle- 
man had  said  that  he  wished  for  no  fixed  revenue, — not  a  shil- 
ling. If  by  a  word  he  could  convert  the  Capitol  into  gold,  ho 
would  not  do  it.  Why  all  this  fear  of  revenue?  Why,  Sir, 
because,  as  the  gentleman  told  us,  it  tends  to  consolidation. 
Now  this  can  mean  neither  more  nor  less  than  that  a  common 
revenue  is  a  common  interest,  and  that  all  common  interests 
tend  to  preserve  the  union  of  the  States.  I  confess  I  like  that 
tendency  :  if  the  gentleman  dislikes  it,  he  is  right  in  deprecat- 
ing a  shilling's  fixed  revenue.  So  much,  Sir,  for  consolidation. 

Professing  to  be  provoked  by  what  he  chose  to  consider  a 
charge  made  by  me  against  South  Carolina,  the  honourable 
member,  Mr.  President,  has  taken  up  a  new  crusade  against 
New  England.  Leaving  altogether  the  subject  of  the  public 
lands,  in  which  his  success,  perhaps,  had  been  neither  distin- 
guished nor  satisfactory,  and  letting  go,  also,  of  the  topic  of  the 
tariff,  he  sallied  forth  in  a  general  assault  on  the  opinions,  poli- 
tics, and  parties  of  New  England,  as  they  have  been  exhibited 
in  the  last  thirty  years.  This  is  natural.  The  "narrow  policy" 
of  the  public  lands  had  proved  a  legal  settlement  in  South  Car- 
olina, and  was  not  to  be  removed.  The  "accursed  policy,"  of 
the  tariff,  also,  had  established  the  fact  of  its  birth  and  parent- 


SPEECH   IN  REPLY  TO   HAYtfE.  357 

age  in  the  same  State.  No  wonder,  therefore,  the  gentleman 
wished  to  carry  the  war,  as  he  expressed  it,  into  the  enemy's 
country.  Prudently  willing  to  quit  these  subjects,  he  was 
doubtless  desirous  of  fastening  on  others  that  which  could  not 
be  transferred  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  The  politics 
of  Xew  England  became  his  theme  ;  and  it  was  in  this  part  of 
his  speech,  I  think,  that  he  menaced  me  with  such  sore  discom-. 
fiture.  Discomfiture  !  Why,  Sir,  when  he  attacks  any  thing 
which  I  maintain,  and  overthrows  it ;  when  he  turns  the  right 
or  left  of  any  position  which  I  take  up ;  when  he  drives  me 
from  any  ground  I  choose  to  occupy,— he  may  then  talk  of  dis- 
comfiture, but  not  till  that  distant  day.  What  has  lie  done? 
Has  he  maintained  his  own  charges  ?  Has  he  proved  what  he 
alleged?  Has  he  sustained  himself  in  his  attack  on  the  govern- 
ment, and  on  the  history  of  the  North,  in  the  matter  of  the  pub- 
lic lands?  Has  he  disproved  a  fact,  refuted  a  proposition, 
weakened  an  argument,  maintained  by  me  ?  Has  he  come 
within  beat  of  drum  of  any  position  of  mine?  O,  no  !  but  he 
has  "carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country!"  Yes,  Sir, 
arid  what  sort  of  a  war  has  he  made  of  it?  Why,  Sir,  he  has 
stretched  a  drag-net  over  the  whole  surface  of  perished  pamph- 
lets, indiscreet  sermons,  frothy  paragraphs,  and  fuming  popular 
addresses ;  over  whatever  the  pulpit,  in  its  moments  of  alarm, 
the  press  in  its  heats,  and  parties  in  their  extravagance,  have 
severally  thrown  off  in  times  of  general  excitement  and  vio- 
lence. He  has  thus  swept  together  a  mass  of  such  things  us, 
but  that  they  are  now  old  and  cold,  the  public  health  Avould 
have  required  him  rather  to  leave  in  their  state  of  dispersion. 
For  a  good  long  hour  or  two,  we  had  the  unbroken  pleasure  of 
listening  to  the  honourable  member,  while  he  recited,  with  his 
usual  grace  and  spirit,  and  with  evident  high  gusto,  speeches, 
pamphlets,  addresses,  and  all  the  et  ceteras  of  the  political  press, 
such  as  warm  heads  produce  in  warm  times ;  and  such  as  it 
would  be  "discomfiture"  indeed  for  any  one,  whose  taste  did 
not  delight  in  that  sort  of  reading,  to  be  obliged  to  peruse. 
Tli is  is  his  war.  This  it  is  to  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's 
country.  It  is  in  an  invasion  of  this  sort  that  he  flatters  him- 
self with  the  expectation  of  gaining  laurels  fit  to  adorn  a  Sena- 
tor's brow  ! 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  not,  it  will  not,  I  trust,  be  expected 
that  I  should,  either  now  or  at  any  time,  separate  this  farrago 
into  parts,  and  answer  and  examine  its  components.  1  shall 
barely  bestow  upon  it  all  a  general  remark  or  two.  In  the  run 
of  forty  years,  Sir,  under  this  Constitution,  we  have  experi- 
enced sundry  successive  violent  party  contests.  Party  arose, 
indeed,  with  the  Constitution  itself,  and,  in  some  form  or  other, 


.358  WEBSTER. 

has  attended  it  through  the  greater  part  of  its  history.    Whether 
any  other  constitution  than  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation 
•was  desirable,  was  itself  a  question  on  which  parties  divided:  if 
a  new  constitution  were  framed,  what  powers  should  be  given 
to  it  was  another  question  ;  and,  when  it  had  been  formed, 
what  was  in  fact  the  just  extent  of  the  powers  actually  con- 
.f erred  was  a  third.     Parties,  as  we  know,  existed  under  the 
first  administration,  as  distinctly  marked  as  those  -which  have 
manifested  themselves  at  any  subsequent  period.    The  contest 
immediately  preceding  the  political  change  in  1801,  and  that, 
again,  which  existed  at  the  commencement  of  the  late  war,  are 
other  instances  of  party  excitement,  of  something  more  than 
usual  strength  and  intensity.    In  all  these  conflicts  there  was, 
no  doubt,  much  of  violence  on  both  and  all  sides.    It  would  be 
impossible,  if  one  had  a  fancy  for  such  employment,  to  adjust 
the  relative  quantum  of  violence  between  these  contending  par- 
ties.   There  was  enough  in  each,  as  must  always  be  expected  in 
popular  governments.    "With  a  great  deal  of  proper  and  deco- 
rous discussion,  there  was  mingled  a  great  deal,  also,  of  decla- 
mation, virulence,  crimination,  and  abuse.    In  regard  to  any 
party,  probably,  at  one  of  the  leading  epochs  in  the  history 
of  parties,  enough  may  be  found  to  make   out  another  in- 
ilamed  exhibition,  not  unlike  that  with  which  the  honourable 
member   has    edified   us.    For  myself,   Sir,   I    shall   not  rake 
among  the  rubbish  of  bygone  times,  to  see  what  I  can  find,  or 
whether  I  cannot  find  something  by  which  I  can  fix  a  blot  on 
the  escutcheon  of  any  State,  any  party,  or  any  part  of  the  coun- 
try.   General  Washington'*   administration  was  steadily  and 
zealously  maintained,  as  we  all  know,  by  New  England.    It 
was  violently  opposed  elsewhere.    We  know  in  what  quarter 
he  had  the  most  earnest,  constant,  and  persevering  support,  in 
all  his  great  and  leading  measures.    We  know  where  his  pri- 
vate and  personal  character  were  held  in  the  highest  degree  of 
attachment  and  veneration  ;  and  we  know,  too,  where  his  meas- 
ures were  opposed,  his  services  slighted,  and  his  character  vili- 
fied.   We  know,  or  we  might  know,  if  we  turned  to  the  journals, 
•who  expressed  respect,  gratitude,  and  regret  when  he  retired 
from  the  chief  magistracy ;  and  who  refused  to  express  either 
respect,  gratitude,  or  regret.    I  shall  not  open  those  journals. 
Publications  more  abusive  or  scurrilous  never  saw  the  light, 
than  were  sent  forth  against  Washington,  and  all  his  leading 
measures,  from  presses  south  of  New  England.    But  I  shall 
not  look  them  up.    I  employ  no  scavengers  ;  no  one  is  in  at- 
tendance on  me,  tendering  such  means  of  retaliation ;  and,  if 
there  were,  with  an  ass's  load  of  them,  with  a  bulk  as  huge  as 
that  which  the  gentleman  himself  has  produced,  I  would  not 


SPEECH  IJT   REPLY  TO  HAYtfE.  359 

touch  one  of  them.  I  see  enough  of  the  violence  of  our  own 
times,  to  be  no  way  anxious  to  rescue  from  forgetfulness  the 
extravagances  of  times  past. 

Besides,  what  is  all  this  to  the  present  purpose  ?  It  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  public  lands,  in  regard  to  which  the  attack 
was  begun  ;  and  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  those  sentiments  and 
opinions  which,  I  have  thought,  tend  to  disunion,  and  all  of 
which  the  honourable  member  seems  to  have  adopted  himself, 
and  undertaken  to  defend.  New  England  has,  at  times,  (so  ar- 
gues the  gentlemen,)  held  opinions  as  dangerous  as  those  he 
now  holds.  Suppose  this  were  so  :  why  should  he  therefore 
abuse  New  England?  If  he  finds  himself  countenanced  by  acts 
of  hers,  how  is  it  that,  while  he  relies  on  these  acts,  he  covers, 
or  seeks  to  cover,  their  authors  with  reproach  ?  But,  Sir,  if,  in 
the  course  of  forty  years,  there  have  been  undue  effervescences 
of  party  in  New  England,  lias  the  same  thing  happened  no- 
where else?  Party  animosity  and  party  outrage,  not  in  New 
England,  but  elsewhere,  denounced  President  Washington,  not 
only  as  a  Federalist,  but  as  a  Tory,  a  British  agent,  a  man  who 
in  his  high  office  sanctioned  corruption.  But  does  the  honour- 
able member  suppose,  if  I  had  a  tender  here  who  should  put 
such  an  effusion  of  wickedness  and  folly  in  my  hand,  that  I 
would  stand  up  and  read  it  against  the  South?  Parties  ran 
into  great  heats  again  in  1799  and  1800.  What  was  said,  Sir,  or 
rather  what  was  not  said,  in  those  years,  against  John  Adams, 
one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  its 
admitted  ablest  defender  on  the  floor  of  Congress?  If  the  gen- 
tleman wishes  to  increase  his  stores  of  party  abuse  and  frothy 
violence,  if  lie  has  a  determined  proclivity  to  such  pursuits, 
there  are  treasures  of  that  sort  south  of  the  Potomac,  much  to 
liis  taste,  yet  untouched.  I  shall  not  touch  them. 

The  parties  which  divided  the  country  at  the  commencement 
of  the  late  war  were  violent.  But  then  there  was  violence  on 
botli  sides,  and  violence  in  every  State.  Minorities  and  majori- 
ties were  equally  violent.  There  was  no  more  violence  against 
the  war  in  New  England  than  in  other  States ;  nor  any  more 
appearance  of  violence,  except  that,  owing  to  a  dense  popula- 
tion, greater  facility  of  assembling,  and  more  presses;  there 
may  have  been  more  in  quantity  spoken  and  printed  there  than 
in  some  other  places.  Jn  the  article  of  sermons,  too,  New  Eng- 
land is  somewhat  more  abundant  than  South  Carolina  ;  and  for 
that  reason  the  chance  of  finding  here  and  there  an  exception- 
able one  may  be  greater.  I  hope,  too,  there  are  more  good 
ones.  Opposition  may  have  been  more  formidable  in  New 
England,  as  it  embraced  a  larger  portion  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion ;  but  it  was  no  more  unrestrained  in  its  principle,  or  violent 


360  WEBSTER. 

in  manner.  The  minorities  dealt  quite  as  harshly  with  their 
own  State  governments  as  the  majorities  dealt  with  the  admin- 
istration here.  There  were  presses  on  both  sides,  popular 
meetings  on  both  sides,  ay,  and  pulpits  on  both  sides  also.  The 
gentleman's  purveyors  have  only  catered  for  him  among  the 
productions  of  one  side.  I  certainly  shall  not  supply  the  defi- 
ciency by  furnishing  samples  of  the  other.  I  leave  to  him,  and 
to  them,  the  whole  concern. 

It  is  enough  for  me  to  say,  that  if,  in  any  part  of  this  their 
grateful  occupation,  if,  in  all  their  researches,  they  find  any 
thing  in  the  history  of  Massachusetts,  or  New  England,  or  in 
the  proceedings  of  any  legislative  or  other  public  body,  disloyal 
to  the  Union,  speaking  slightly  of  its  value,  proposing  to  break 
it  up,  or  recommending  non-intercourse  with  neighbouring 
States,  on  account  of  difference  of  political  opinion,  then,  Sir,  I 
give  them  all  up  to  the  honourable  gentleman's  unrestrained 
rebuke  ;  expecting,  however,  that  he  will  extend  his  bufferings 
in  like  manner  tn  nil  niinilnr  iirtinuli'nys,  wherever  else  found. 

The  gentleman,  Sir,  has  spoken  at  large  of  former  parties, 
now  no  longer  in  being,  by  their  received  appellations,  and  has 
undertaken  to  instruct  us,  not  only  in  the  knowledge  of  their 
principles,  but  of  their  respective  pedigrees  also.  He  has  as- 
cended to  their  origin,  and  run  out  their  genealogies.  AVith 
most  exemplary  modesty,  he  speaks  of  the  party  to  which  he 
professes  to  have  himself  belonged,  as  the  true  Pure,  the  only 
honest,  patriotic  party,  derived  by  regular  descent,  from  father 
to  son,  from  the  time  of  the  virtuous  Romans  !  Spreading  be- 
fore us  the  family  tree  of  political  parties,  he  takes  especial  care 
to  show  himself  snugly  perched  on  a  popular  bough  !  He  is 
wakeful  to  the  expediency  of  adopting  such  rules  of  descent  as 
shall  bring  him  in,  to  the  exclusion  of  others,  as  an  heir  to  the 
inheritance  of  all  public  virtue  and  all  true  political  principle. 
His  party  and  his  opinions  are  sure  to  be  orthodox  ;  heterodoxy 
is  confined  to  his  opponents.  He  spoke,  Sir,  of  the  Federal i 
and  I  thought  I  saw  some  eyes  begin  to  open  and  stare  a  little, 
when  he  ventured  on  that  ground.  I  expected  he  would  draw 
his  sketches  rather  lightly,  when  he  looked  on  the  circle  round 
him,  and  especially  if  he  should  cast  his  thoughts  to  the  high 
places  out  of  the  Senate.9  Nevertheless  he  went  back  to  Rome, 
ad  annum  urbis  condilcc,  and  found  the  fathers  of  the  Federalists 

«  The  allusion  is  to  President  Jackson,  who  had  been  an  avowed  Federalist 
all  his  life,  and  whom,  for  that  reason,  Jefferson,  the  father  of  the  old  Demo- 
cratic party,  had  greatly  disliked.  Nor  was  Jackson  by  any  means  the  only 
leader  in  the  new  Democratic  party  of  that  time,  who  had  growu  up  in  the  po- 
litical creed  of  Federalism.  What  here  follows,  in  reference  to  the  course  of 
parties,  is  iu  Webster's  happiest  vein  of  satire. 


SPEECH   IN   REPLY  TO  HAYNE.  361 

in  the  primeval  aristocrats  of  that  renowned  empire !  He 
traced  the  flow  of  Federal  blood  down  through  successive  ages 
and  centuries,  till  he  brought  it  into  the  veins  of  the  American 
Tories,  of  whom,  by  the  way,  there  were  twenty  in  the  Caroli- 
nas  for  one  in  Massachusetts.  From  the  Tories  he  followed  it 
to  the  Federalists ;  and,  as  the  Federal  party  was  broken  up, 
and  there  was  no  possibility  of  transmitting  it  further  on  this 
side  the  Atlantic,  he  seems  to  have  discovered  that  it  has  gone 
off  collaterally,  though  against  all  the  canons  of  descent,  into 
the  Ultras  of  France,  and  finally  become  extinguished,  like  ex- 
ploded gas,  among  the  adherents  of  Don  Miguel  ! l 

This,  Sir,  is  an  abstract  of  the  gentleman's  history  of  Federal- 
ism. I  am  not  about  to  controvert  it.  It  is  not,  at  present, 
worth  the  pains  of  refutation ;  because,  Sir,  if  at  this  day  any 
one  feels  the  sin  of  Federalism  lying  heavily  on  his  conscience, 
he  can  easily  procure  remission.  He  may  even  obtain  an  indul- 
gence, if  he  be  desirous  of  repeating  the  same  transgression. 
It  is  an  affair  of  no  difficulty  to  get  into  this  same  right  line  of 
patriotic  descent.  A  man  now-a-days  is  at  liberty  to  choose  his 
political  parentage.  lie  may  elect  his  own  father.  Federalist 
or  not,  he  may,  if  he  choose,  claim  to  belong  to  the  favoured 
stock,  and  his  claim  will  be  allowed.  He  may  carry  back  his 
pretensions  just  as  far  as  the  honourable  gentleman  himself; 
nay,  he  may  make  himself  out  the  honourable  gentleman's 
cousin,  and  prove,  satisfactorily,  that  he  is  descended  from  the 
same  political  great-grandfather.  All  this  is  allowable.  We  all 
know  a  process,  Sir,  by  which  the  whole  Essex  Junto  could,  in 
one  hour,  be  all  washed  white  from  their  ancient  Federalism, 
and  come  out,  everyone  of  them,  original  Democrats,  dyed  in 
the  wool  !2  Some  of  them  have  actually  undergone  the  opera- 
tion, and  they  say  it  is  quite  easy.  The  only  inconvenience  it 
.'•ns,  as  they  tell  us,  is  a  slight  tendency  of  the  blood  to 
th<i  face,  a  soft  suffusion,  which  however  is  very  transient,  since 
nothing  is  said  by  those  whom  they  join  calculated  to  deepen 
the  red  on  the  cheek,  but  a  prudent  silence  is  observed  in  re- 
uurd  to  all  the  past.  Indeed,  Sir,  some  smiles  of  approbation 
have  been  bestowed,  and  some  crumbs  of  comfort  have  fallen, 
not  a  thousand  miles  from  the  door  of  the  Hartford  Convention 

1  Don  ?Tifrucl  was  a  Portuguese  Prince,  and  one  of  the  claimants  of  the 
throne  of  Portugal.     He  was  the  leader  of  the  Absolutist  faction  against  the  lib- 
eral a:i<l  Constitutional  government  established  by  his  father,  John  the  Sixth. 
Hi-  tfot  possession  of  the  crowu  in  1S28,  and,  after  a  dreadful  civil  war,  was  ovrr- 
thrown  in  18^t. 

2  The  Essex  Junto  was  a  cluster  of  men  in  Essex  county,  Massachusetts, 
who  were  somewhat  noted  for  their  intense  and  demonstrative  Federalism,  and 
who  made  a  special  set-to  against  the  embargo  of  1807,  aud  the  war  of  1S12. 


362  WEBSTER. 

itself.  And  if  the  author  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787  possessed  the 
other  requisite  qualifications,  there  is  no  knowing,  notwith- 
standing his  Federalism,  to  what  heights  of  favour  he  might 
not  yet  attain. 

Mr.  President,  in  carrying  his  warfare,  such  as  it  was,  into 
New  England,  the  honourable  gentleman  all  along  professes  to 
be  acting  on  the  defensive.  He  chooses  to  consider  me  as 
having  assailed  South  Carolina,  and  insists  that  he  comes  forth 
only  as  her  champion,  and  in  her  defence.  Sir,  I  do  not  admit 
that  I  made  any  attack  whatever  on  South  Carolina.  Nothing 
like  it.  The  honourable  member,  in  his  first  speech,  expressed 
opinions  in  regard  to  revenue  and  some  other  topics,  which  I 
heard  both  with  pain  and  with  surprise.  I  told  the  gentleman  1 
was  aware  that  such  sentiments  were  entertained  out  of  the  gov- 
ernment, but  had  not  expected  to  find  them  advanced  in  it ; 
that  I  knew  there  were  persons  in  the  South  who  speak  of  our 
Union  with  indifference  or  doubt,  taking  pains  to  magnify  its 
evils,  and  to  say  nothing  of  its  benefits ;  that  the  honourable 
member  himself,  I  was  sure,  could  never  be  one  of  these  ;  and 
I  regretted  the  expression  of  such  opinions  as  he  had  avowed, 
because  I  thought  their  obvious  tendency  was  to  encourage 
feelings  of  disrespect  to  the  Union,  and  to  impair  its  strength. 
This,  Sir,  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  I  said  on  the  subject. 
And  this  constitutes  the  attack  which  called  on  the  chivalry  of 
the  gentleman,  in  his  own  opinion,  to  harry  us  with  such  a 
foray  among  the  party  pamphlets  and  party  proceedings  of 
Massachusetts!  If  he  means  that  I  spoke  with  dissatisfaction 
or  disrespect  of  the  ebullitions  of  individuals  in  South  Caro- 
lina, it  is  true.  But  if  he  means  that  I  assailed  the  character 
of  the  State,  her  honour,  or  patriotism,  that  I  reflected  on  her 
history  or  her  conduct,  he  has  not  the  slightest  ground  for  any 
such  assumption.  I  did  not  even  refer,  I  think,  in  my  observa- 
tions, to  any  collection  of  individuals.  I  said  nothing  of  the 
recent  conventions.  I  spoke  in  the  most  guarded  and  careful 
manner,  and  only  expressed  my  regret  for  the  publication  of 
opinions  which  I  presumed  the  honourable  member  disap- 
proved as  much  as  myself.  In  this,  it  seems,  I  was  mistaken. 
I  do  not  remember  that  the  gentleman  has  disclaimed  any  sen- 
timent, or  any  opinion,  of  a  supposed  anti-union  tendency, 
which  on  ail  or  any  of  the  recent  occasions  has  been  expressed.3 

3    In  the  Fall  of  1828,  the  legislature  of  South  Carolina  st-t  forth  an  "  1 
tion  ancl  Protest,"  formally  asserting  the  doctrines  which  were  thenceforth 
known  as  "  Nulliileation."    Ju  this  instrument  they  expressly  claimed,  In  be- 
half  of  the  States,  "  a  veto  or  control  on  the  action  of  the  General  Government, 
on  contested  points  of  authority."    They  also  instanced  the  tariff  of  1". 
casc  that  would  justify  a  State  in  exercising  this  power  of  veto  or  control. 


SPEECH   liN"   REPLY  TO  HAYIJE.  363 

The  whole  drift  of  his  speech  has  been  rather  to  prove  that, 
in  divers  times  and  manners,  sentiments  equally  liable  to  my 
objection  have  been  avowed  in  New  England.  And  one  would 
suppose  that  his  object,  in  this  reference  to  Massachusetts,  was 
to  find  a  precedent  to  justify  proceedings  in  the  South,  were  it 
not  for  the  reproach  and  contumely  with  which  he  labours,  all 
along,  to  load  these  his  own  chosen  precedents.  By  way  of 
defending  South  Carolina  from  what  he  chooses  to  think  an 
attack  on  her,  he  first  quotes  the  example  of  Massachusetts, 
and  then  denounces  that  example  in  good  set  terms.  This  two- 
fold purpose,  not  very  consistent  with  itself,  one  would  think, 
was  exhibited  more  than  once  in  the  course  of  his  speech.  lie 
referred,  for  instance,  to  the  Hartford  Convention.  Did  he  do 
this  for  authority,  or  for  a  topic  of  reproach  ?  Apparently  for 
both  ;  for  he  told  us  that  he  should  find  no  fault  with  the  mere 
fact  of  holding  such  a  convention,  and  considering  and  discuss- 
ing such  questions  as  he  supposes  were  then  and  there  dis- 
cussed ;  but  what  rendered  it  obnoxious  was  its  being  held  at 
the  time,  and  under  the  circumstances  of  the  country  then 
existing.  We  were  in  a  war,  he  said,  and  the  country  needed 
all  our  aid ;  the  hand  of  government  required  to  be  strength- 
ened, not  weakened ;  and  patriotism  should  have  postponed 
such  proceedings  to  another  day.  The  thing  itself,  then,  is  a 
precedent ;  the  time  and  manner  of  it  only,  a  subject  of  cen- 
sure. 

Xow,  Sir,  I  go  much  further,  on  this  point,  than  the  honour- 
able member.  Supposing,  as  the  gentleman  seems  to  do,  that 
the  Hartford  Convention  assembled  for  any  such  purpose  as 
breaking  up  the  Union,  because  they  thought  unconstitutional 
laws  had  been  passed,  or  to  consult  on  that  subject,  or  to  calcu- 
late the  valae  of  the  Union, — supposing  this  to  be  their  purpose,  or 
any  part  of  it,  then  I  say  the  meeting  itself  was  disloyal,  and 
was  obnoxious  to  censure,  whether  held  in  time  of  peace  or 
time  of  war,  or  under  whatever  circumstances.  The  material 
question  is  the  object.  Is  dissolution  the  object  ?  If  it  be,  exter- 
nal circumstances  may  make  it  a  more  or  less  aggravated  case, 
but  cannot  affect  the  principle.  I  do  not  hold,  therefore,  Sir, 
that  the  Hartl'ord  Convention  was  pardonable,  even  to  the 
extent  of  the  gentleman's  admission,  if  its  objects  were  really 
such  as  have  been  imputed  to  it.  Sir,  there  never  was  a  time, 
under  any  degree  of  excitement,  in  which  the  Hartford  Con- 
vention, or  any  other  convention,  could  maintain  itself  one 
moment  in  New  England,  if  assembled  for  any  such  purpose 
as  the  gentleman  says  would  have  been  an  allowable  purpose. 
To  hold  conventions  to  decide  constitutional  law  I  To  try  the 
binding  validity  of  statutes  by  votes  in  a  convention  I  Sir,  the 


364  WEBSTER. 

Hartford  Convention,  I  presume,  would  not  desire  that  the 
honourable  gentleman  should  be  their  defender  or  advocate, 
if  he  puts  their  case  upon  such  untenable  and  extravagant 
grounds. 

Then,  Sir,  the  gentleman  has  no  fault  to  find  with  these  re- 
cently-promulgated South  Carolina  opinions.  And  certainly  he 
need  have  none  ;  for  his  own  sentiments  as  now  advanced,  and 
advanced  on  reflection,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  comprehend 
them,  go  the  full  length  of  all  these  opinions.  I  propose,  Sir, 
to  say  something  on  these,  and  to  consider  how  far  they  are 
just  and  constitutional.  Before  doing  that,  however,  let  me 
observe,  that  the  eulogium  pronounced  on  the  character  of  the 
State  of  South  Carolina  by  the  honourable  gentleman,  for  her 
Revolutionary  and  other  merits,  meets  my  hearty  concurrence. 
I  shall  not  acknowledge  that  the  honourable  member  goes 
before  me  in  regard  for  whatever  of  distinguished  talent,  or 
distinguished  character,  South  Carolina  has  produced.  I  claim 
part  of  the  honour,  I  partake  in  the  pride,  of  her  great  names. 
I  claim  them  for  countrymen,  one  and  all ;  the  Laurenses,  the 
Rutleclges,  the  Pinckneys,  the  Sumpters,  the  Marions,  Ameri- 
cans all,  whose  fame  is  no  more  to  be  hemmed  in  by  State  lines, 
than  their  talents  and  patriotism  were  capable  of  being  circum- 
scribed within  the  same  narrow  limits.  In  their  day  and  gen- 
eration, they  served  and  honoured  the  country,  and  the  whole 
country ;  and  their  renown  is  of  the  treasures  of  the  whole 
country.  Him  whose  honoured  name  the  gentleman  himself 
bears, — does  he  esteem  me  less  capable  of  gratitude  for  his 
patriotism,  or  sympathy  for  his  sufferings,  than  if  his  eyes  had 
first  opened  upon  the  light  of  Massachusetts,  instead  of  South 
Carolina?  Sir,  does  he  suppose  it  in  his  power  to  exhibit  a 
Carolina  name  so  bright  as  to  produce  envy  in  my  bosom  ?  No, 
Sir,  increased  gratification  and  delight,  rather.  I  thank  God 
that,  if  I  am  gifted  with  little  of  the  spirit  which  is  able  to  raN<> 
mortals  to  the  skies,  I  have  yet  none,  as  I  trust,  of  that  other 
spirit  which  would  drag  angels  down.  When  I  shall  be  found, 
Sir,  in  my  place  here  in  the  Senate,  or  elsewhere,  to  sneer  at 
public  merit,  because  it  happens  to  spring  up  beyond  the  little 
limits  of  my  own  State  or  neighbourhood ;  when  I  refuse,  for 
any  such  cause,  or  for  any  cause,  the  homage  due  to  Amer- 
ican talent,  to  elevated  patriotism,  to  sincere  devotion  to  lib- 
erty and  the  country  ;  or,  if  I  see  an  uncommon  endowment  of 
Heaven,  if  I  see  extraordinary  capacity  and  virtue  in  any  son 
of  the  South,  and  if,  moved  by  local  prejudice  or  gangrened  by 
State  jealousy,  I  get  up  here  to  abate  the  tithe  of  a  half  from 
his  just  character  and  just  fame,  may  my  tongue  cleave  to  the 
roof  of  my  mouth! 


SPEECH  IK   REPLY  TO  HAYKE.  3G5 

Sir,  let  me  recur  to  pleasing  recollections ;  let  me  indulge  in 
refreshing  remembrance  of  the  past ;  let  me  remind  you  that, 
in  early  times,  no  States  cherished  greater  harmony,  both  of 
principle  and  feeling,  than  Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina. 
Would  to  God  that  harmony  might  again  return  !  Shoulder  to 
shoulder  they  went  through  the  Revolution;  hand  in  hand  they 
stood  round  the  administration  of  Washington,  and  felt  his  own 
great  arm  lean  on  them  for  support.  Unkind  feeling,  if  it  exist, 
alienation  and  distrust,  are  the  growth,  unnatural  to  such  soils, 
of  false  principles  since  sown.  They  are  weeds,  the  seeds  of 
which  that  same  great  arm  never  scattered. 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  enter  on  no  encomium  upon  Massachu- 
setts ;  she  needs  none.  There  she  is :  behold  her,  and  judge 
for  yourselves.  There  is  her  history;  the  world  knows  it  by 
heart.  The  past,  at  least,  is  secure.  There  is  Boston,  and  Con- 
cord, and  Lexington,  and  Bunker  Hill ;  and  there  they  will  re- 
main for  ever.  The  bones  of  her  sons,  falling  in  the  great 
struggle  for  Independence,  now  lie  mingled  with  the  soil  of 
every  State  from  New  England  to  Georgia ;  and  there  they  will 
lie  for  ever.  And,  Sir,  where  American  Liberty  raised  its  first 
voice,  and  where  its  youth  was  nurtured  and  sustained,  there  it 
still  lives,  in  the  strength  of  its  manhood  and  full  of  its  original 
spirit.  If  discord  and  disunion  shall  wound  it ;  if  party  strife 
and  blind  ambition  shall  hawk  at  and  tear  it ;  if  folly  and  mad- 
ness, if  uneasiness  under  salutary  and  necessary  restraint,  shall 
succeed  in  separating  it  from  that  Union  by  which  alone  its  ex- 
istence is  made  sure ;  it  will  stand,  in  the  end,  by  the  side  of 
that  cradle  in  which  its  infancy  was  rocked;  it  will  stretch 
forth  its  arm,  with  whatever  of  vigour  it  may  still  retain,  over 
the  friends  Who  gather  round  it ;  and  it  will  fall  at  last,  if  fall  it 
must,  amidst  the  proudest  monuments  of  its  own  glory,  and  on 
the  very  spot  of  its  origin. 

There  yet  remains  to  be  performed,  Mr.  President,  by  far  the 
most  grave  and  important  duty  which  I  feel  to  be  devolved  on 
me  by  this  occasion.  It  is  to  state,  and  to  defend,  what  I  con- 
ceive to  be  the  true  principles  of  the  Constitution  under  which 
AVO  are  here  assembled.  I  might  well  have  desired  that  so 
weighty  a  task  should  have  fallen  into  other  and  abler  hands. 
I  could  have  wished  that  it  should  have  been  executed  by  those 
whose  character  and  experience  give  weight  and  influence  to 
opinions,  such  as  cannot  possibly  belong  to  mine.  But, 
Sir,  I  have  met  the  occasion,  not  sought  it;  and  I  shall  proceed 
to  .state  my  own  sentiments,  without  challenging  for  them  any 
particular  regard,  with  studied  plainness,  and  as  much  precision 
as  possible. 


366  WEBSTER. 

I  understand  the  honourable  gentleman  from  South  Carolina 
to  maintain,  that  it  is  a  right  of  the  State  legislatures  to  inter- 
fere, whenever,  in  their  judgment,  this  government  transcends 
its  constitutional  limits,  and  to  arrest  the  operation  of  its  laws. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  this  right,  as  a  right  existing 
under  the  Constitution,  not  as  a  right  to  overthrow  it  on  the 
ground  of  extreme  necessity,  such  as  would  justify  violent 
revolution. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  an  authority,  on  the  part  of  the 
States,  thus  to  interfere,  for  the  purpose  of  correcting  the  exer- 
cise of  power  by  the  general  government,  of  checking  it,  and  of 
compelling  it  to  conform  to  their  opinion  of  the  extent  of  its 
powers. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain,  that  the  ultimate  power  of 
judging  of  the  constitutional  extent  of  its  own  authority  is  not 
lodged  exclusively  in  the  general  government,  or  any  branch  of 
it;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  States  may  lawfully  decide 
for  themselves,  and  each  State  for  itself,  whether,  in  a  given 
case,  the  Act  of  the  general  government  transcends  its  power. 

I  understand  him  to  insist  that,  if  the  exigency  of  the  case, 
in  the  opinion  of  any  State  government,  require  it,  such  State 
government  may,  by  its  own  sovereign  authority,  annul  an  Act 
of  the  general  government  which  it  deems  plainly  and  palpa- 
bly unconstitutional. 

This  is  the  sum  of  what  I  understand  from  him  to  be  the 
South  Carolina  doctrine,  and  the  doctrine  which  he  maintains. 
I  propose  to  consider  it,  and  compare  it  with  the  Constitution. 
Allow  me  to  say,  as  a  preliminary  remark,  that  I  call  this  the 
South  Carolina  doctrine,  only  because  the  gentleman  himself 
has  so  denominated  it.  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  say  that 
South  Carolina,  as  a  State,  has  ever  advanced  these  sentiments. 
I  hope  she  has  not,  and  never  may.  That  a  great  majority  of 
her  people  are  opposed  to  the  tariff  laws,  is  doubtless  true. 
That  a  majority,  somewhat  less  than  that  just  mentioned,  con- 
scientiously believe  these  laws  unconstitutional,  may  probably 
also  be  true.  But  that  any  majority  holds  to  the  right  of  direct 
State  interference  at  State  discretion,  the  right  of  nullifying 
Acts  of  Congress,  by  Acts  of  State  legislation,  is  more  than  I 
know,  and  what  I  shall  be  slow  to  believe. 

That  there  are  individuals  besides  the  honourable  gentleman 
who  do  maintain  these  opinions,  is  quite  certain.  I  recollect 
the  recent  expression  of  a  sentiment,  which  circumstances  at- 
tending its  utterance  and  publication  justify  us  in  supposing 
was  not  unpremeditated:  "The  sovereignty  of  the  State.— 
never  to  be  controlled,  construed,  or  decided  on,  but  by  her 
own  feelings  of  honourable  justice." 


SPEECH   IX  REPLY  TO  HAYNE.  367 

We  all  know  that  civil  institutions  are  established  for  the  pub- 
lic benefit,  and  that  when  they  cease  to  answer  the  ends  of  their 
existence  they  may  be  changed.  But  I  do  not  understand  the 
doctrine  now  contended  for  to  be  that  which,  for  the  sake  of 
distinctness,  we  may  call  the  right  of  revolution.  I  understand 
the  gentleman  to  maintain,  that  it  is  constitutional  to  interrupt 
the  administration  of  the  Constitution  itself,  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  are  chosen  and  sworn  to  administer  it,  by  the  direct 
interference,  in  form  of  law,  of  the  States,  in  virtue  of  their 
sovereign  capacity.  The  inherent  right  in  the  people  to  reform 
their  government  I  do  not  deny  :  and  they  have  another  right, 
and  that  is,  to  resist  unconstitutional  laws,  without  overturning 
the  government.  It  is  no  doctrine  of  mine,  that  unconstitu- 
tional laws  bind  the  people.  The  great  question  is,  Whose  pre- 
rogative iff  it  to  decide  on  the  constitutionality  or  unconstitutionality 
of  the  laws  ?  On  that,  the  main  debate  hinges.  The  proposition 
that,  in  case  of  a  supposed  violation  of  the  Constitution  by  Con- 
t.he  States  have  a  constitutional  right  to  interfere  and 
annul  the  law  of  Congress,  is  the  proposition  of  the  gentleman. 
I  do  not  admit  it.  If  the  gentleman  had  intended  no  more  than 
to  assert  the  right  of  revolution  for  justifiable  cause,  he  would 
have  said  only  what  all  agree  to.  Cut  I  cannot  conceive  that 
there  can  be  a  middle  course,  between  submission  to  the  laws, 
when  regularly  pronounced  constitutional,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  open  resistance,  which  is  revolution  or  rebellion,  on  the 
other. 

This  leads  us  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of  this  government, 
and  the  source  of  its  power.  Whose  agent  is  it?  Is  it  the  creat- 
ure of  the  State  legislatures,  or  the  creature  of  the  people  ?  If 
the  government  of  the  United  States  be  the  agent  of  the  State 
governments,  then  they  may  control  it,  provided  they  can  agree 
in  the  manner  of  controlling  it:  if  it  be  the  agent  of  the  people, 
then  the  people  alone  can  control  it,  restrain  it,  modify,  or  re- 
form it.  It  in  observable  enough,  that  the  doctrine  for  which 
the  honourable  gentleman  contends  leads  him  to  the  necessity 
of  maintaining,  not  only  that  this  general  government  is  the 
LTouture  of  the  States,  but  that  it  is  the  creature  of  each  of  the 
severally  ;  so  that  each  may  assert  the  power,  for  itself, 
of  determining  whether  it  acts  within  the  limits  of  its  authority. 
lie  servant  of  four-aiid-twciity  masters,  of  different  wills 
and  different  purposes,  and  yet  bound  to  obey  all.  This  absurd- 
ity (for  it  srcms  no  less)  arises  from  a  misconception  as  to  the 
origin  of  this  government  and  its  true  character.  It  is,  Sir,  the 
people's  Constitution,  the  people's  government,  made  for  the 
people,  made  by  the  people,  and  answerable  to  the  people. 
The  people  of  the  United  States  have  declared  that  this  Consti- 


3G8  .    WEBSTER. 

tution  shall  be  the  supreme  law.  We  must  either  admit  the 
proposition  or  dispute  their  authority.  The  States  are,  unques- 
tionably, sovereign,  so  far  as  their  sovereignty  is  not  affected 
by  this  supreme  law.  But  the  State  legislatures,  as  political 
bodies,  however  sovereign,  are  yet  not  sovereign  over  the  peo- 
ple. So  far  as  the  people  have  given  power  to  the  general  gov- 
ernment, so  far  the  grant  is  unquestionably  good,  and  the 
government  holds  of  the  people,  and  not  of  the  State  govern- 
ments. We  are  all  agents  of  the  same  supreme  power,  the 
people.  The  general  government  and  the  State  governments 
derive  their  authority  from  the  same  source.  Neither  can,  in 
relation  to  the  other,  be  called  primary,  though  one  is  definite 
and  restricted,  and  the  other  general  and  residuary.  The  na- 
tional government  possesses  those  powers  which  it  can  be 
shown  the  people  have  conferred  on  it,  and  no  more.  All  the 
rest  belongs  to  the  State  governments,  or  to  the  people  them- 
selves. So  far  as  the  people  have  retrained  State  sovereignty, 
by  the  expression  of  their  will  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  so  far,  it  must  be  admitted,  State  sovereignty  is 
effectually  controlled.  I  do  not  contend  that  it  is,  or  ought  to 
be,  controlled  further.  The  sentiment  to  which  I  have  referred 
propounds  that  State  sovereignty  is  only  to  be  controlled  by  its 
own  "feeling  of  justice;"  that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  to  be  con- 
trolled at  all ;  for  one  who  is  to  follow  his  own  feelings  is  under 
no  legal  control.  Now,  however  men  may  think  this  ought  to 
be,  the  fact  is,  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  chosen 
to  impose  control  on  State  sovereignties.  There  are  those, 
doubtless,  who  wish  they  had  been  left  without  restraint ;  but 
the  Constitution  has  ordered  the  matter  differently.  To  make 
war,  for  instance,  is  an  exorcise  of  sovereignty  ;  but  the  Consti- 
tution declares  that  no  State  shall  make  war.  To  coin  money 
is  another  exercise  of  sovereign  power ;  but  no  State  is  at  lib- 
erty to  coin  money.  Again,  the  Constitution  says  that  no  sov- 
ereign State  shall  be  so  sovereign  as  to  make  a  treaty.  These 
prohibitions,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  a  control  on  the  State 
sovereignty  of  South  Carolina,  as  well  as  of  the  other  States, 
which  does  not  arise  "from  her  own  feelings  of  honourable  jus- 
tice." Such  an  opinion,  therefore,  is  in  defiance  of  the  plainest 
provisions  of  the  Constitution. 

There  are  proceedings  of  public  bodies,  to  which  I  refer, 
for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  more  fully  what  is  the  length 
and  breadth  of  that  doctrine,  denominated  the  Carolina  doc- 
trine, which  the  honourable  member  has  now  stood  up  on  this 
floor  to  maintain.  In  one  of  them  I  find  it  resolved,  that  "the 
tariff  of  1828,  and  every  other  tariff  designed  to  promote  one 
branch  of  industry  at  the  expense  of  others,  is  contrary  to  the 


SPEECH  Itf  EEPLY  TO  HAYNE.  3G9 

meaning  and  intention  of  the  federal  compact ;  and  such  a 
dangerous,  palpable,  and  deliberate  usurpation  of  power,  by  a 
determined  majority,  wielding  the  general  government  beyond 
the  limits  of  its  delegated  powers,  as  calls  upon  the  States 
which  compose  the  suffering  minority,  in  their  sovereign  capac- 
ity, to  exercise  the  powers  which,  as  sovereigns,  necessarily 
devolve  upon  them  when  their  compact  is  violated." 

Observe,  Sir,  that  this  resolution  includes  our  old  tariff  of 
1816,  as  well  as  all  others  ;  because  that  was  established  to  pro- 
mote the  interest  of  the  manufacturers  of  cotton,  to  the  mani- 
fest and  admitted  injury  of  the  Calcutta  cotton  trade.  Observe, 
again,  that  all  the  qualifications  are  here  rehearsed  and  charged 
upon  the  tariff,  which  are  necessary  to  bring  the  case  within 
the  gentleman's  proposition.  The  tariff  is  a  usurpation  ;  it  is  a 
dangerous  usurpation  ;  it  is  a  palpable  usurpation  ;  it  is  a  delib- 
erate usurpation.  It  is  such  a  usurpation,  therefore,  as  calls 
upon  the  States  to  exercise  their  right  of  interference.  Here 
is  a  ease,  th«Mj.  within  the  gentleman's  principles,  and  all  his 
qualifications  of  his  principles.  It  is  a  case  for  action.  The 
Constitution  is  plainly,  dangerously,  palpably,  and  deliberately 
violated  ;  and  the  States  must  interpose  their  own  authority  to 
arrest  the  law.  Let  us  suppose  the  State  of  South  Carolina  to 
express  this  same  opinion,  by  the  voice  of  her  legislature. 
That  would  be  very  imposing  :  but  what  then  ?  Is  the  voice  of 
one  State  conclusive?  It  so  happens  that,  at  the  very  moment 
when  South  Carolina  resolves  that  the  tariff  laws  are  unconsti- 
tutional, Pennsylvania  and  Kentucky  resolve  exactly  the  re- 
verse. They  hold  those  laws  to  be  both  highly  proper  and 
strictly  constitutional.  And  now,  Sir,  how  does  the  honourable 
member  propose  to  deal  with  this  case  ?  Uow  does  he  relieve 
us  from  this  difficulty,  upon  any  principle  of  his?  His  con- 
struction gets  us  into  it ;  how  does  he  propose  to  get  us  out? 

In  Carolina,  the  tariff  is  a  palpable,  deliberate  usurpation  : 
Carolina  therefore  may  nullify  it,  and  refuse  to  pay  the  duties. 
In  Pennsylvania,  it  is  both  clearly  constitutional  and  highly 
expedient;  and  there  the  duties  are  to  be  paid.  And  yet  we 
live  under  a  government  of  uniform  laws,  and  under  a  Consti- 
tution too,  which  contains  an  express  provision,  as  it  happens, 
that  all  duties  shall  be  equal  in  all  the  States.  Does  not  this 
approach  absurdity  ? 

If  there  be  no  power  to  settle  such  questions,  independent 
of  either  of  the  States,  is  not  the  whole  Union  a  rope  of 
sand  V  Are  we  not  thrown  back  again,  precisely,  upon  the  old 
Confederation  ? 

Jt  is  too  plain  to  be  argued.  Four-and-twenty  interpreters 
of  constitutional  law,  each  with  a  power  to  decide  for  itself, 


370  WEBSTER. 

and  none  with  authority  to  bind  anybody  else,  and  this  consti- 
tutional law  the  only  bond  of  their  union!  What  is  such  a 
state  of  things  but  a  mere  connection  during  pleasure,  or,  to 
use  the  phraseology  of  the  times,  during  feeling?  And  that 
feeling  too,  not  the  feeling  of  the  people,  who  established  the 
Constitution,  but  the  feeling  of  the  State  governments. 

In  another  of  the  South  Carolina  addresses,  having  premised 
that  the  crisis  requires  "all  the  concentrated  energy  of  passion," 
an  attitude  of  open  resistance  to  the  laws  of  the  Union  is  ad- 
vised. Open  resistance  to  the  laws,  then,  is  the  constitutional 
remedy,  the  conservative  power  of  the  State,  which  the  South 
Carolina  doctrines  teach  for  the  redress  of  political  evils,  real 
or  imaginary.  And  its  authors  further  say  that,  appealing  with 
confidence  to  the  Constitution  itself  to  justify  their  opinions, 
they  cannot  consent  to  try  their  accuracy  by  the  courts  of  just  ice. 
In  one  sense  indeed,  Sir,  this  is  assuming  an  attitude  of  open 
resistance  in  favour  of  liberty.  But  what  sort  of  liberty?  The 
liberty  of  establishing  their  own  opinions,  in  defiance  of  the 
opinions  of  all  others  ;  the  liberty  of  judging  and  of  deciding 
exclusively  themselves,  in  a  matter  in  which  others  have  as 
much  right  to  judge  and  decide  as  they  ;  the  liberty  of  placing 
their  own  opinions  above  the  judgment  of  all  others,  above  the 
laws,  and  above  the  Constitution.  This  is  their  liberty,  and  this 
is  the  fair  result  of  the  proposition  contended  for  by  the  hon- 
ourable gentleman.  Or,  it  may  be  more  properly  said,  it  is 
identical  with  it,  rather  than  a  result  from  it. 

Resolutions,  Sir,  have  been  recently  passed  by  the  legislature 
of  South  Carolina.  I  need  not  refer  to  them  :  they  go  no  fur- 
ther than  the  honourable  gentleman  himself  has  gone,  and  I 
hope  not  so  far.  I  content  myself,  therefore,  with  debating  the 
matter  with  him. 

And  now,  Sir,  what  I  have  first  to  say  on  this  subject  is.  that 
at  no  time,  and  under  no  circumstances,  has  New  England,  or 
any  State  in  New  England,  or  any  respectable  body  of  persons 
in  New  England,  or  any  public  man  of  standing  in  New  Eng- 
land, put  forth  such  a  doctrine  as  this  Carolina  doctrine.  New 
England  has  studied  the  Constitution  in  other  schools,  and  un- 
der other  teachers.  She  looks  upon  it  with  other  regards,  and 
deems  more  highly  and  reverently  both  of  its  just  authority 
and  its  utility  and  excellence.  The  history  of  her  legislative 
proceedings  may  be  traced.  The  ephemeral  effusions  of  tempo- 
rary bodies,  called  together  by  the  excitement  of  the  occasion, 
may  be  hunted  up  :  they  have  been  hunted  up.  The  opinions 
and  votes  of  her  public  men,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  may  be 
explored.  It  will  all  be  in  vain.  The  Carolina  doctrine  can 
derive  from  her  neither  countenance  nor  support.  She  rejects 


SPEECH   IX   REPLY   TO   HAYXE.  371 

it  now ;  she  always  did  reject  it ;  and,  till  she  loses  her  senses, 
she  always  will  reject  it.  The  honourable  member  has  referred 
to  expressions  on  the  subject  of  the  embargo  law,  made  in  this 
place,  by  an  honourable  and  venerable  gentleman,  now  favour- 
ing us  with  his  presence.*  He  quotes  that  distinguished  Senator 
as  saying  that,  in  his  judgment,  the  embargo  law  was  unconsti- 
tutional, and  that  therefore,  in  his  opinion,  the  people  were  not 
bound  to  obey  it.  That,  Sir,  is  perfectly  constitutional  lan- 
guage. An  unconstitutional  law  is  not  binding  :  but  then  it  docs 
not  rest  with  a  resolution  or  a  law  of  a  State  legislature  to  decide 
whether  an  Act  of  Congress  be  or  be  not  constitutional.  An  uncon- 
stitutional Act  of  Congress  would  not  bind  the  people  of  this 
District,  although  they  have  no  legislature  to  interfere  in  their 
behalf  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  constitutional  law  of  Congress 
does  bind  the  citizens  of  every  State,  although  all  their  legisla- 
tures should  undertake  to  annul  it  by  Act  or  resolution.  The 
venerable  Connecticut  Senator  is  a  constitutional  lawyer,  of 
sound  principles  and  enlarged  knowledge  ;  a  statesman  prac- 
tised and  experienced,  bred  in  the  company  of  Washington,  and 
holding  just  views  upon  the  nature  of  our  governments.  He 
believed  the  embargo  unconstitutional,  and  so  did  others  ;  but 
what  then?  Who  did  he  suppose  was  to  decide  that  question  ? 
The  State  legislatures?  Certainly  not.  No  such  sentiment 
ever  escaped  his  lips. 

Let  us  follow  up,  Sir,  this  New  England  opposition  to  the 
embargo  laws  ;  let  us  trace  it,  till  we  discern  the  principle  which 
controlled  and  governed  New  England  throughout  the  whole 
course  of  that  opposition.  We  shall  then  see  what  similarity 
there  is  between  the  New  England  school  of  constitutional 
opinions  and  this  modern  Carolina  school.  The  gentleman,  I 
think,  read  a  petition  from  some  single  individual,  addressed  to 
the  legislature  of  Massachusetts,  asserting  the  Carolina  doctrine; 
th.it  is,  the  right  of  State  interference  to  arrest  the  laws  of  the 
Union.  The  fate  of  that  petition  shows  the  sentiment  of  the 
i*"4i>hiture.  It  met  no  favour.  The  opinions  of  Massachusetts 
very  different.  Misgoverned,  wronged,  oppressed,  as  she 
felt  herself  to  be,  she  still  held  fast  her  integrity  to  the  Union. 
The  gentleman  may  find  in  her  proceedings  much  evidence  of 
-Faction  with  the  measures  of  government,  and  great  and 
<!.-cp  dislike  to  the  embargo:  all  this  makes  the  case  so  much 
the  stronger  for  her  ;  for,  notwithstanding  all  this  dissatisfac- 
tion and  dislike,  she  still  claimed  no  right  to  sever  the  bonds  of 
the  Union.  There  was  heat,  and  there  was  anger  in  her  politi- 
cal feeling.  Be  it  so ;  but  neither  her  heat  nor  her  anger  be- 

4    Thia  4<  venerable  gentleman"  was  Senator  Hillhouse,  of  Connecticut. 


372  WEBSTER. 

trayed  her  into  infidelity  to  the  government.  The  gentleman 
labours  to  prove  that  she  disliked  the  embargo  as  much  as 
South  Carolina  dislikes  the  tariff,  and  expressed  her  dislike  as 
strongly.  Be  it  so  :  but  did  she  propose  the  Carolina  rcmrdtjj  did 
she  threaten  to  interfere,  b?/  State  autlwrity,  to  annul  the  laics  of  the 
Union?  That  is  the  question  for  the  gentleman's  consideration. 
No  doubt,  Sir,  a  great  majority  of  the  people  of  New  England 
conscientiously  believed  the  embargo  law  of  1807  unconstitu- 
tional;5 as  conscientiously,  certainly,  as  the  people  of  South 
Carolina  hold  that  opinion  of  the  tariff.  They  reasoned  thus: 
Congress  has  power  to  regulate  commerce ;  but  here  is  a  law, 
they  said,  stopping  all  commerce,  and  stopping  it  indefinitely. 
The  law  is  perpetual ;  that  is,  it  is  not  limited  in  point  of  time, 
and  must  of  course  continue  until  it  shall  be  repealed  by  some 
other  law.  It  is  as  perpetual,  therefore,  as  the  law  again>t 
treason  or  murder.  Now,  is  this  regulating  commerce,  or  de- 
stroying it?  Is  it  guiding,  controlling,  giving  the  rule  to  com- 
merce, as  a  subsisting  thing,  or  is  it  putting  an  end  to  it  alto- 
gether? Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  a  majority  in  New 
England  deemed  this  law  a  violation  of  the  Constitution.  The 
very  case  required  by  the  gentleman  to  justify  State  interfer- 
ence had  then  arisen.  ^Massachusetts  believed  this  law  to  be 
"a  deliberate,  palpable,  and  dangerous  exercise  of  a  power  not 
granted  by  the  Constitution."  Deliberate  it  was,  for  it  was 
long  continued ;  palpable  she  thought  it,  as  no  words  in  the 
Constitution  gave  the  power,  and  only  a  construction,  in  her 

5  This  famous  embargo  law  was  prompted,  as  a  measure  of  defence,  by  the 
fierce  commercial  war  carried  on  between  Great  Britain  and  Napoleon.  The 
former  fought  with  her  Orders  in  Council,  the  latter,  by  his  Berlin  and  Milan 
Decrees,  each  in  effect  interdicting  the  other  from  all  commerce  with  neutral 
powers.  As  Great  Britain  was  then  mistress  of  the  seas,  and  as  Napoleon  had 
all  the  continent  of  Europe  under  hit;  foot,  the  effect  of  that  war  was  to  cut  off 
the  whole  foreign  trade  of  the  United  States.  And  the  purpose  of  the  embargo 
law  was  to  retaliate  on  both  of  the  European  belligerents  by  totally  excluding 
their  ships  from  all  the  American  ports.  This  completed  the  work  which  the 
Orders  and  Decrees  aforesaid  had  begun.  I  quote  from  Mr.  G.  T.  Curtis's  Life 
of  Daniel  ircbster :  "No  measure  of  the  Federal  Government,  since  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  had  ever  appeared,  to  most  of  those  on  whose  interests 
it  directly  operated,  so  sudden,  so  unnecessary,  and  so  oppre.-sivo,  as  the  Km- 
bargo.  It  fell  upon  the  Eastern  States  with  a  terrific  weight.  Six  towns  in 
New  England  possessed  more  than  a  third  of  the  tonnage  of  the  whole  Union. 
At  one  blow,  this  great  mass  of  shipping  was  rendered  almost  valueless.  The. 
numerous  classes,  who  were  dependent  on  its  active  employment  for  their  live- 
lihood, were  suddenly  deprived  of  their  long-accustomed  means  of  earning  their 
daily  bread."  — Perhaps  I  ought  to  add  that,  to  meet  the  exigency,  President 
Jefferson  called  an  extra  session  of  Congress  in  October,  1807;  on  the  18th  of 
December,  sent  Congress  a  message  recommending  the  Embargo;  and  the  bill 
to  that  effect  became  a  law  on  the  22d  of  the  same  month.  This  was  sudden 
indeed  1 


SPEECH   IX   REPLY  TO   HAYNE.  373 

opinion  most  violent,  raised  it;  dangerous  it  was,  since  it 
threatened  utter  ruin  to  her  most  important  interests.  Here, 
then,  was  a  Carolina  case.  How  did  Massachusetts  deal  with 
it?  It  was,  as  she  thought,  a  plain,  manifest,  palpable  violation 
of  the  Constitution,  and  it  brought  ruin  to  her  doors.  Thou- 
sands of  families,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  individuals, 
were  beggared  by  it.  While  she  saw  and  felt  all  this,  she  saw 
and  felt  also,  that,  as  a  measure  of  national  policy,  it  was  per- 
fectly futile ;  that  the  country  was  no  way  benefited  by  that 
which  caused  so  much  individual  distress  ;  that  it  was  efficient 
only  for  the  production  of  evil,  and  all  that  evil  inflicted  on  our- 
selves. In  such  a  case,  under  such  circumstances,  how  did 
Massachusetts  demean  herself?  Sir,  she  remonstrated,  she 
memorialized,  she  addressed  herself  to  the  general  government, 
not  exactly  "with  the  concentrated  energy  of  passion,"  but 
with  her  own  strong  sense,  and  the  energy  of  sober  conviction. 
But  she  did  not  interpose  the  arm  of  her  own  power  to  arrest 
the  law,  and  break  the  embargo.  Far  from  it.  Her  principles 
bound  her  to  two  things  ;  and  she  followed  her  principles,  lead 
where  they  might.  First,  to  submit  to  every  constitutional  law 
of  Congress ;  and,  secondly,  if  the  constitutional  validity  of  tho 
law  be  doubted,  to  refer  that  question  to  the  decision  of  the 
proper  tribunals.  The  first  principle  is  vain  and  ineffectual 
without  the  second.  A  majority  of  us  in  New  England  believed 
the  embargo  law  unconstitutional ;  but  the  great  question  was, 
and  always  will  be,  in  such  cases,  Who  is  to  decide  this?  Who 
is  to  judge  between  the  people  and  the  government?  And,  Sir, 
it  is  quite  plain,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  con- 
fers on  the  government  itself,  to  be  exercised  by  its  appropriate 
department,  and  under  its  own  responsibility  to  the  people,  this 
power  of  deciding  ultimately  and  conclusively  upon  the  just 
extent  of  its  own  authority.  If  this  had  not  been  done,  we 
should  not  have  advanced  a  single  step  beyond  the  old 
Confederation. 

Being  fully  of  opinion  that  the  embargo  law  was  unconstitu- 
tional, the  people  of  New  England  were  yet  equally  clear  in  the 
opinion  (it  was  a  matter  they  did  not  doubt  upon)  that  the  ques- 
tion.  after  all,  must  be  decided  by  the  judicial  tribunals  of  the 
"United  States.  Before  those  tribunals,  therefore,  they  brought 
tin-  question.  Under  the  provisions  of  the  law,  they  had  given 
bonds,  to  millions  in  amount,  and  which  were  alleged  to  be  for- 
feited. They  suffered  the  bonds  to  be  sued,  and  thus  raised 
the  question.  In  the  old-fashioned  way  of  settling  disputes, 
they  went  to  law.  The  case  came  to  hearing,  and  solemn  argu- 
ment ;  and  he  who  espoused  their  cause,  and  stood  up  for  them 
inst  the  validity  of  the  embargo  Act,  was  none  other  than 


aga 


o74  AVEBSTER. 

that  great  man,  of  whom  the  gentleman  has  made  honourable 
mention,  Samuel  Dexter.  lie  was  then,  Sir,  in  the  fulness  of 
his  knowledge  and  the  maturity  of  his  strength.  lie  had  retired 
from  long  and  distinguished  public  service  here,  to  the  renewed 
pursuit  of  professional  duties ;  carrying  with  him  all  thai,  en- 
largement and  expansion,  all  the  new  strength  and  force,  which 
an  acquaintance  with  the  more  general  subjects  discussed  in  the 
national  councils  is  capable  of  adding  to  professional  attain- 
ment, in  a  mind  of  true  greatness  and  comprehension.  lie  was 
a  lawyer,  and  he  was  also  a  statesman.  He  had  studied  the 
Constitution,  when  he  filled  public  station,  that  he  might  de- 
i'end  it  ;  he  had  examined  its  principles,  that  he  might  maintain 
them.  More  than  all  men,  or  at  least  as  much  as  any  man,  he 
was  attached  to  the  general  government  and  to  the  union  of  the 
Slates.  His  feelings  and  opinions  all  ran  in  that  direction.  A 
question  of  constitutional  law,  too,  was,  of  all  subjects,  that  one 
which  was  best  suited  to  his  talents  and  learning.  Aloof  frcm 
technicality,  and  unfettered  by  artificial  rule,  such  a  qu 
gave  opportunity  for  that  deep  and  clear  analysis,  that  mighty 
grasp  ol'  principle,  which  so  much  distinguished  his  higher 
efforts.  His  very  statement  was  argument ;  his  inference. 
seemed  demonstration.  The  earnestness  of  his  own  conviction 
wrought  conviction  in  others.  One  was  convinced,  and  be- 
lieved, and  assented,  because  it  was  gratifying,  delightful,  to 
think,  and  feel,  and  believe,  in  unison  with  an  intellect  of  such 
evident  superiority. 

Mr.  Dexter,  Sir,  such  as  I  have  described  him,  argued  the 
New  England  cause.  He  put  into  his  effort  his  whole  heart,  as 
well  as  all  the  powers  of  his  understanding  ;  for  he  had  avowed, 
in  the  most  public  manner,  his  entire  concurrence  with  his 
neighbours  on  the  point  in  dispute.  He  argued  the  cause  :  it 
was  lost,  and  New  England  submitted.  The  established  tribu- 
nals pronounced  the  law  constitutional,  and  New  England 
acquiesced.  Now,  Sir,  is  not  this  the  exact  opposite  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  gentleman  from  South  Carolina?  According  to 
him,  instead  of  referring  to  the  judicial  tribunals,  we  should 
have  broken  up  the  embargo  by  laws  of  our  own ;  we  should 
have  repealed  it,  quoad  New  England;  for  we  had  a  strong, 
palpable,  and  oppressive  case.  Sir,  we  believed  the  embargo 
unconstitutional ;  but  still  that  was  matter  of  opinion,  and  who 
was  to  decide  it?  We  thought  it  a  clear  case;  but,  neverthe- 
less, we  did  not  take  the  law  into  our  own  hands,  because  we  did 
not  wish  to  bring  about  a  revolution,  nor  to  break  the  Union  : 
for  I  maintain  that,  between  submission  to  the  decision  of  the 
constituted  tribunals  and  revolution,  or  disunion,  there1  is  no 
middle  ground;  there  is  no  ambiguous  condition,  half  allegiance, 


SPEECH  Itf   REPLY  TO   HAYNE.  375 

and  half  rebellion.  And,  Sir,  how  futile,  how  very  futile  it  is, 
to  admit  the  right  of  State  interference,  and  then  attempt  to 
save  it  from  the  character  of  unlawful  resistance,  by  adding 
terms  of  qualification  to  the  causes  and  occasions,  leaving  all 
these  qualifications,  like  the  case  itself,  in  the  discretion  of 
the  State  governments  I  It  must  be  a  clear  case,  it  is  said,  a 
deliberate  case  ;  a  palpable  case  ;  a  dangerous  case.  But  then 
the  State  is  still  left  at  liberty  to  decide  for  herself  what  is 
clear,  what  is  deliberate,  what  is  palpable,  what  is  dangerous. 
Do  adjectives  and  epithets  avail  any  thing? 

Sir,  the  human  mind  is  so  constituted,  that  the  merits  of 
both  sides  of  a  controversy  appear  very  clear,  and  very  palpa- 
ble, to  those  who  respectively  espouse  them ;  and  both  sides 
usually  grow  clearer  as  the  controversy  advances.  South  ( 'aro- 
lina  sees  unconstitutionulity  in  the  tariff;  she  sees  oppression 
there  also,  and  she  sees  danger.  Pennsylvania,  with  a  vision 
not  less  sharp,  looks  at  the  same  tariff,  and  sees  no  such  thing 
in  it ;  she  sees  it  all  constitutional,  all  useful,  all  safe.  The 
faith  of  South  Carolina  is  strengthened  by  opposition,  and  she 
now  not  only  sees,  but  resolves,  that  the  tariff  is  palpably  un- 
constitutional, oppressive  and  dangerous :  but  Pennsylvania, 
not  to  be  behind  her  neighbours,  and  equally  willing  to 
strengthen  her  own  faith  by  a  confident  asseveration,  resolves, 
also,  and  gives  to  every  warm  affirmative  of  South  Carolina  a 
plain,  downright,  Pennsylvania  negative.  South  Carolina,  to 
show  the  strength  and  unity  of  her  opinion,  brings  her  assem- 
bly to  a  unanimity,  within  seven  voices  :  Pennsylvania,  not  to 
be  outdone  in  this  respect  more  than  others,  reduces  her  dis- 
sentient fraction  to  a  single  vote.  Now,  Sir,  again  I  ask  the 
gentleman,  What  is  to  be  done?  Are  these  States  both  right? 
Ts  he  bound  to  consider  them  both  right?  If  not,  which  is  in 
the  wrong?  or,  rather,  which  has  the  best  right  to  decide? 
And  if  he,  and  if  I,  are  not  to  know  what  the  Constitution 
means,  and  what  it  is,  till  those  two  State  legislatures,  and  the 
twenty-two  others,  shall  agree  in  its  construction,  what  have 
wo  sworn  to,  when  we  have  sworn  to  maintain  it?  All  this, 
Sir,  shows  the  inherent  futility  —  I  had  almost  used  a  stronger 
word  — of  conceding  this  power  of  interference  to  the  States, 
and  then  attempting  to  secure  it  from  abuse  by  imposing  quali- 
fications of  which  the  States  themselves  are  to  judge.  One  of 
two  tilings  is  true,  — either  the  laws  of  the  Union  are  beyond 
the  discretion  and  beyond  the  control  of  the  States  ;  or  else  we 
no  constitution  of  general  government,  and  are  thrust 
back  again  to  the  days  of  the  Confederation. 

Let  me  here  say,  Sir,  that  if  the  gentleman's  doctrine  had 
been  received  and  acted  upon  in  New  England,  in  the  times  of 


S7G  WEBSTER. 

the  embargo  and  non-intercourse,  we  should  probably  not  now 
have  been  here.  The  government  would  very  likely  have  gone 
to  pieces,  and  crumbled  into  dust.  No  stronger  case  can  ever 
arise  than  existed  under  those  laws  ;  no  States  can  ever  enter- 
tain a  clearer  conviction  than  the  New  England  States  then 
entertained ;  and  if  they  had  been  under  the  influence  of  that 
heresy  of  opinion,  as  I  must  call  it,  which  the  honourable  mem- 
ber  espouses,  this  Union  would,  in  all  probability,  have  been 
scattered  to  the  four  winds.  I  ask  the  gentleman,  therefore,  to 
apply  his  principles  to  that  case  ;  I  ask  him  to  come  forth  and 
declare  whether,  in  his  opinion,  the  New  England  States  would 
have  been  justified  in  interfering  to  break  up  the  embargo  sys- 
tem, under  the  conscientious  opinions  which  they  held  upon  it? 
Had  they  a  right  to  annul  that  law?  I)oes  he  admit  or  deny? 
If  what  is  thought  palpably  unconstitutional  in  South  Carolina 
justifies  that  State  in  arresting  the  progress  of  the  law,  tell  me 
whether  that  which  was  thought  palpably  unconstitutional  also 
in  Massachusetts  would  have  justified  her  in  doing  the  samo 
thing.  Sir,  I  deny  the  whole  doctrine.  It  has  not  a  foot  of 
ground  in  the  Constitution  to  stand  on.  No  public  man  of 
reputation  ever  advanced  it  in  Massachusetts  in  the  warmest 
times,  or  could  maintain  himself  upon  it  there  at  any  time. 

I  must  now  beg  to  ask,  Sir,  whence  is  this  supposed  right  of 
the  States  derived?  Where  do  they  find  the  power  to  interfere 
with  the  laws  of  the  Union  ?  Sir,  the  opinion  which  the  hon- 
ourable gentleman  maintains  is  a  notion  founded  in  a  total 
misapprehension,  in  my  judgment,  of  the  origin  of  this  govern- 
ment, and  of  the  foundation  on  which  it  stands.  I  hold  it  to  bo 
a  popular  government,  erected  by  the  people ;  those  who  ad- 
minister it,  responsible  to  the  people ;  and  itself  capable  of 
being  amended  and  modified,  just  as  the  people  may  choose  it 
should  be.  It  is  as  popular,  just  as  truly  emanating  from  the 
people,  as  the  State  governments.  It  is  created  for  one  pur- 
pose ;  the  State  governments  for  another.  It  has  its  own 
powers ;  they  have  theirs.  There  is  no  more  authority  with 
them  to  arrest  the  operation  of  a  law  of  Congress,  than  with 
Congress  to  arrest  the  operation  of  their  laws.  We  are  here  to 
administer  a  Constitution  emanating  immediately  from  the  peo- 
ple, and  trusted  by  them  to  our  administration.  It  is  not  the 
creature  of  the  State  governments.  It  is  of  no  moment  to  the 
argument,  that  certain  acts  of  the  State  legislatures  are  neces- 
sary to  fill  our  seats  in  this  body.  That  is  not  one  of  their  origi- 
nal State  powers,  a  part  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  State.  It  is  a 
duty  which  the  people,  by  the  Constitution  itself,  have  imposed 
on  the  State  legislatures  ;  and  which  they  might  have  left  to  be 


SPEECH  IK  REPLY  TO  HAYtfE.  377 

performed  elsewhere,  if  they  had  seen  fit.  So  they  have  left 
the  choice  of  President  with  electors ;  but  all  this  does  not 
affect  the  proposition,  that  this  whole  government,  President, 
Senate,  and  House  of  Representatives,  is  a  popular  govern- 
ment. It  leaves  it  still  all  its  popular  character.  The  governor 
of  a  State  (in  some  of  the  States)  is  chosen,  not  directly  by  the 
people,  but  by  those  who  are  chosen  by  the  people,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  performing,  among  other  duties,  that  of  electing  a  gov- 
ernor. Is  the  government  of  the  State,  on  that  account,  not  a 
popular  government?  This  government,  Sir,  is  the  independent 
offspring  of  the  popular  will.  It  is  not  the  creature  of  State 
legislatures ;  nay,  more,  if  the  whole  truth  must  be  told,  the 
people  brought  it  into  existence,  established  it,  and  have  hith- 
erto supported  it,  for  the  purpose,  amongst  others,  of  imposing 
certain  salutary  restraints  on  State  sovereignties.  The  States 
cannot  now  make  war;  they  cannot  contract  alliances;  they 
cannot  make,  each  for  itself,  separate  regulations  of  commerce ; 
they  cannot  lay  imposts ;  they  cannot  coin  money.  If  this  Con- 
stitution, Sir,  be  the  creature  of  State  legislatures,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  it  has  obtained  a  strange  control  over  the  voli- 
tions of  its  creators. 

The  people,  then,  Sir,  erected  this  government.  They  gave  it 
a  Constitution,  and  in  that  Constitution  they  have  enumerated 
the  powers  which  they  bestow  on  it.  They  have  made  it  a  lim- 
ited government.  They  have  defined  its  authority.  They  have 
restrained  it  to  the  exercise  of  such  powers  as  are  granted ;  and 
all  others,  they  declare,  are  reserved  to  the  States  or  the  peo- 
ple. But,  Sir,  they  have  not  stopped  here.  If  they  had,  they 
would  have  accomplished  but  half  their  work.  No  definition 
can  be  so  clear  as  to  avoid  possibility  of  doubt ;  no  limitation  so 
precise  as  to  exclude  all  uncertainty.  Who,  then,  shall  construe 
this  grant  of  the  people  ?  Who  shall  interpret  their  will,  where 
it  may  be  supposed  they  have  left  it  doubtful  ?  With  whom  do 
they  repose  this  ultimate  right  of  deciding  on  the  powers  of  the 
government?  Sir,  they  have  settled  all  this  in  the  fullest  man- 
ner. They  have  left  it  with  the  government  itself,  in  its  appro- 
priate branches.  Sir,  the  very  chief  end,  the  main  design,  for 
which  the  whole  Constitution  was  framed  and  adopted,  was  to 
establish  a  government  that  should  not  be  obliged  to  act 
through  State  agency,  or  depend  on  State  opinion  and  State  dis- 
cretion. The  people  had  had  quite  enough  of  that  kind  of 
government  under  the  Confederation.  Under  that  system,  the 
legal  action,  the  application  of  law  to  individuals,  belonged  ex- 
clusively to  the  States.  Congress  could  only  recommend  ;  their 
Arts  were  not  of  binding  force,  till  the  States  had  adopted  and 
sanctioned  thorn ?  Are  we  in  that  condition  still?  Are  wo  yet 


378  WEBSTER. 

at  the  mercy  of  State  discretion  and  State  construction  ?  Sh*j 
if  we  are,  then  vain  will  be  our  attempt  to  maintain  the  Consti- 
tution under  which  we  sit. 

But,  Sir,  the  people  have  wisely  provided,  in  the  Constitution 
itself,  a  proper,  suitable  mode  and  tribunal  for  settling  ques- 
tions of  constitutional  law.  There  are  in  the  Constitution 
grants  of  powers  to  Congress,  and  restrictions  on  these  powers. 
There  are,  also,  prohibitions  on  the  States.  Some  authority 
must,  therefore,  necessarily  exist,  having  the  ultimate  jurisdic- 
tion to  fix  and  ascertain  the  interpretation  of  these  grants, 
restrictions,  and  prohibitions.  The  Constitution  has  itself 
pointed  out,  ordained,  and  established  that  authority.  How 
has  it  accomplished  this  great  and  essential  end?  By  declar- 
ing, Sir,  that  "the  Constitution  and  the  laics  of  the  United  States 
made  in  pursuance  thereof  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land, 
an}/  thiny  in  Ihc  constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary 
riotwithrtandKng.'* 

This,  Sir,  was  the  first  great  step.  By  this  the  supremacy  of 
the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States  is  declared.  The 
people  so  will  it.  Xo  State  law  is  to  be  valid  which  comes  in 
conflict  with  the  Constitution  or  any  law  of  the  United  States 
passed  in  pursuance  of  it.  But  who  shall  decide  this  question 
of  interference?  To  whom  lies  the  last  appeal?  This,  Sir,  the 
Constitution  itself  decides  also,  by  declaring  "that  the  judicial 
power  ahiiU  extend  tu  all  cases  arising  under  the  Constitution  and 
laws  <-f  the  United  Xfalts."  These  two  provi.Mons,  Sir,  cover  the 
whole  ground.  They  are,  in  truth,  the  keystone  of  the  arch. 
With  these,  it  is  a  government ;  without  them,  it  is  a  confeder- 
ation. In  pursuance  of  these  clear  and  express  provisions, 
Congress  established,  at  its  very  first  session,  in  the  judicial 
Act,  a  mode  for  carrying  them  into  full  effect,  and  for  bringing 
all  questions  of  constitutional  power  to  the  final  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court.  It  then,  Sir,  became  a  government.  It  then 
had  the  means  of  self-protection  ;  and,  but  for  this,  it  would,  in 
all  probability,  have  been  now  among  things  which  are  past. 
Having  constituted  the  government,  and  declared  its  powers, 
the  people  have  further  said  that,  since  somebody  must  decide 
on  the  extent  of  these  powers,  the  government  shall  itself 
decide ;  subject,  always,  like  other  popular  governments,  to  its 
responsibility  to  the  people.  And  now,  Sir,  I  repeat,  how  is  it 
that  a  State  legislature  acquires  any  power  to  interfere  ?  Who, 
or  what,  gives  them  the  right  to  say  to  the  people,  "  We,  who 
are  your  agents  and  servants  for  one  purpose,  will  undertake  to 
decide  that  your  other  agents  and  servants,  appointed  by  you 
for  another  purpose,  have  transcended  the  authority  you  gave 
them"  ?  The  reply  would  be,  I  think,  not  impertinent,  "  Who 


SPEECH   IN   EEPLY  TO  HAYNE.  379 

made  you  a  judge  over  another's  servants  ?  To  their  own  mas- 
ters they  stand  or  fall." 

Sir,  I  deny  this  power  of  State  legislatures  altogether.  It 
cannot  stand  the  test  of  examination.  Gentlemen  may  say  that 
in  an  extreme  case  a  State  government  might  protect  the  peo- 
ple from  intolerable  oppression.  Sir,  in  such  a  case  the  people 
might  protect  themselves,  without  the  aid  of  the  State  govern- 
ments. Such  a  case  warrants  revolution.  It  must  make,  when 
it  comes,  a  law  for  itself.  A  nullifying  Act  of  a  State  legisla- 
ture cannot  alter  the  case,  nor  make  resistance  any  more  lawful. 
In  maintaining  these  sentiments,  Sir,  1  am  but  asserting  the 
rights  of  the  people.  I  state  what  they  have  declared,  and 
insist  on  their  right  to  declare  it.  They  have  chosen  to  repose 
this  power  in  the  general  government,  and  I  think  it  my  duty  to 
support  it,  like  other  constitutional  powers. 

For  myself,  Sir,  I  do  not  admit  the  competency  of  South  Caro- 
lina, or  any  other  State,  to  prescribe  my  constitutional  duty ; 
or  to  settle,  between  me  and  the  people,  the  validity  of  laws  of 
Congress,  for  which  I  have  voted.  I  decline  her  umpirage.  I 
have  not  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution  according  to  her 
construction  of  its  clauses.  I  have  not  stipulated,  by  my  oatli 
of  office  or  otherwise,  to  come  under  any  responsibility,  except 
to  the  people,  and  those  whom  they  have  appointed  to  pass 
upon  the  question,  whether  laws,  supported  by  my  votes,  con- 
form to  the  Constitution  of  the  country.  And,  Sir,  if  we  look 
to  the  general  nature  of  the  case,  could  any  thing  have  been 
more  preposterous  than  to  make  a  government  for  the.  whole 
Union,  and  yet  leave  its  powers  subject,  not  to  one  interpreta- 
tion, but  to  thirteen  or  twenty-four  interpretations?  Instead 
of  one  tribunal,  established  by  all,  responsible  to  all,  with 
power  to  decide  for  all,  shall  constitutional  questions  be  left  to 
four-and-twenty  popular  bodies,  each  at  liberty  to  decide  for 
;iml  none  bound  to  respect  the  decisions  of  others;  and 
each  at  liberty,  too,  to  give  a  new  construction  on  every  new 
flection  of  its  own  members?  Would  any  thing  with  such  a 
principle  in  it,  or  rather  with  such  a  destitution  of  all  principle, 
be  lit  to  be  called  a  government?  No,  Sir.  It  should  not  be 
denominated  a  Constitution.  It  should  be  called,  rather,  a  col- 
lection of  topics  for  everlasting  controversy ;  heads  of  debate 
for  a  disputatious  people.  It  would  not  be  a  government.  It 
would  not  be  adequate  to  any  practical  good,  nor  fit  for  any 
country  to  live  under. 

To  avoid  all  possibility  of  being  misunderstood,  allow  me  to 
repeat  again,  in  the  fullest  manner,  that  I  claim  no  powers  for 
the  government  by  forced  or  unfair  construction.  I  admit  that 
it  is  a  government  of  strictly  limited  powers  ;  of  enumerated, 


380  WEBSTER. 

specified,  and  particularized  powers ;  and  that  whatsoever  ig 
not  granted,  is  withheld.  But  notwithstanding  all  this,  and 
however  the  grant  of  powers  may  be  expressed,  its  limits  and 
extent  may  yet,  in  some  cases,  admit  of  doubt ;  and  the  general 
government  would  be  good  for  nothing,  it  would  be  incapable 
of  long  existing,  if  some  mode  had  not  been  provided  in  which 
those  doubts,  as  they  should  arise,  might  be  peaceably,  but 
authoritatively,  solved. 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  let  me  run  the  honourable  gentle- 
man's doctrine  a  little  into  its  practical  application.  Let  us  look 
at  his  probable  modus  opei'andi.  If  a  thing  can  be  done,  an 
ingenious  man  can  tell  liow  it  is  to  be  done ;  and  I  wish  to  be 
informed  how  this  State  interference  is  to  be  put  in  practice, 
without  violence,  bloodshed,  and  rebellion.  We  will  take  the 
existing  case  of  the  tariff  law.  South  Carolina  is  said  to  have 
made  up  her  opinion  upon  it  If  we  do  not  repeal  it,  (u>  we 
probably  shall  not,)  she  will  then  apply  to  the  case  the  remedy 
of  her  doctrine.  She  will,  we  must  suppose,  pass  a  law  of  her 
legislature,  declaring  the  several  Acts  of  Congress,  usually 
called  the  tariff  laws,  null  and  void,  so  far  as  they  respect  South 
Carolina,  or  the  citizens  thereof.  So  far,  all  is  a  paper  transac- 
tion, and  easy  enough.  But  the  collector  at  Charleston  is  col- 
lecting the  duties  imposed  by  these  tariff  laws.  He,  therefore, 
must  be  stopped.  The  collector  will  seize  the  goods  if  the 
tariff  duties  are  not  paid.  The  State  authorities  will  undertake 
their  rescue  ;  the  marshal,  with  his  posse,  will  come  to  the  col- 
lector's aid ;  and  here  the  contest  begins.  The  militia  of  the 
State  will  be  called  out  to  sustain  the  nullifying  Act.  They 
will  march,  Sir,  under  a  very  gallant  leader ;  for  I  believe  the 
honourable  member  himself  commands  the  militia  of  that  part 
of  the  State.  He  will  raise  the  NULLIFYING  ACT  on  his  stand- 
ard, and  spread  it  out  as  his  banner  I  It  will  have  a  preamble, 
setting  forth  that  the  tariff  laws  are  palpable,  deliberate,  and 
dangerous  violations  of  the  Constitution !  He  will  proceed, 
with  this  banner  flying,  to  the  custom-house  in  Charleston,  "all 
the  while,  sonorous  metal  blowing  martial  sounds."  Arrived 
at  the  custom-house,  he  will  tell  the  collector  that  he  must  col- 
lect no  more  duties  under  any  of  the  tariff  laws.  This  he  will 
be  somewhat  puzzled  to  say,  by  the  way,  with  a  grave  counte- 
nance, considering  what  hand  South  Carolina  herself  had  in 
that  of  1816.  But,  Sir,  the  collector  would  probably  not  desist 
at  his  bidding.  He  would  show  him  the  law  of  Congress,  the 
treasury  instruction,  and  his  own  oath  of  office.  lie  would  say, 
he  should  perform  his  duty,  come  what  come  might. 

Here  would  ensue  a  pause  ;  for  they  say  that  a  certain  still- 
ness precedes  the  tempest.  The  trumpeter  would  hold  his 


SPEECH   IK   REPLY   TO   HAYNE.  381 

breath  awhile,  and,  before  all  this  military  array  should  fall  on 
the  custom-house,  collector,  clerks,  and  all,  it  is  very  probable 
some  of  those  composing  it  would  request  of  their  gallant  com- 
mander-in-chief  to  be  informed  a  little  upon  the  point  of  law ; 
for  they  have  doubtless  a  just  respect  for  his  opinions  as  a  law- 
yer, as  well  as  for  his  bravery  as  a  soldier.  They  know  he  has 
read  Blackstone  and  the  Constitution,  as  well  as  Turerme  and 
Vauban.  They  ^vould  ask  him,  therefore,  something  concern- 
ing their  rights  in  this  matter.  They  would  inquire  whether  it 
was  not  somewhat  dangerous  to  resist  a  law  of  the  United 
States.  What  would  be  the  nature  of  their  offence,  they  would 
wish  to  learn,  if  they,  by  military  force  and  array,  resisted  the 
execution  in  Carolina  of  a  law  of  the  United  States,  and  it 
should  turn  out,  after  all,  that  the  law  was  constitutional  ?  He 
would  answer,  of  course,  Treason.  No  lawyer  could  give  any 
other  answer.  John  Fries,6  he  would  tell  them,  had  learned 
that,  some  years  ago.  How,  then,  they  would  ask,  do  you  pro- 
pose to  defend  us  ?  We  are  not  afraid  of  bullets,  but  treason 
has  a  way  of  taking  people  off  that  we  do  not  much  relish. 
How  do  you  propose  to  defend  us?  "Look  at  my  floating  ban- 
ner," he  would  reply;  "see  there  the  nullifying  law!"  Is  it 
your  opinion,  gallant  commander,  they  would  then  say,  that,  if 
we  should  be  indicted  for  treason,  that  same  floating  banner  of 
yours  would  make  a  good  plea  in  bar?  "South  Carolina  is  a 
sovereign  State,"  he  would  reply.  That  is  true  ;  but  would  the 
judge  admit  our  plea?  "These  tariff  laws,"  he  would  repeat, 
"are  unconstitutional,  palpably,  deliberately,  dangerously." 
That  all  may  be  so  ;  but  if  the  tribunal  should  not  happen  to  be 
of  that  opinion,  shall  we  swing  for  it?  We  are  ready  to  die  for 
our  country,  but  it  is  rather  an  awkward  business,  this  dying 
without  touching  the  ground  I  After  all,  that  is  a  sort  of  hemp 
tax  worse  than  any  part  of  the  tariff. 

Mr.  President,  the  honourable  gentleman  would  be  in  a  di- 
lemma, like  that  of  another  great  general.  He  would  have  a 
knot  before  him  which  he  could  not  untie.  He  must  cut  it  with 
his  sword.  He  must  say  to  his  followers,  "Defend  yourselves 
with  your  bayonets"  ;  and  this  is  war, —  civil  war. 

Direct  collision,  therefore,  between  force  and  force  is  the  un- 
avoidable result  of  that  remedy  for  the  revision  of  unconstitu- 
tional laws  which  the  gentleman  contends  for.  It  must  happen 
in  the  very  first  case  to  which  it  is  applied.  Is  not  this  the 
plain  result?  To  resist  by  force  the  execution  of  a  law,  gener- 
ally, is  treason.  Can  the  courts  of  the  United  States  take 

G  Congress  having  laid  a  tax  on  whiskey,  a  rebellion  broke  out  in  Pennsylva- 
nia against  the  law,  BO  great  that  it  had  to  bo  put  down  by  military  force,  ami 
Joh'u  Fries  came  to  grief  as  a  leader  la  tbrut  rebellion. 


382  WEBSTER. 

notice  of  the  indulgence  of  a  State  to  commit  treason?  The 
common  saying,  that  a  State  cannot  commit  treason  herself,  is 
nothing  to  the  purpose.  Can  she  authorize  others  to  do  it?  If 
John  Fries  had  produced  an  Act  of  Pennsylvania,  annulling  the 
law  of  Congress,  would  it  have  helped  his  case  ?  Talk  about  it 
as  we  will,  these  doctrines  go  the  length  of  revolution.  They 
are  incompatible  with  any  peaceable  administration  of  the  gov- 
ernment. They  lead  directly  to  disunion  and  civil  commotion  ; 
and  therefore  it  is,  that  at  their  commencement,  when  they  are 
first  found  to  be  maintained  by  respectable  men,  and  in  a 
tangible  form,  I  enter  my  public  protest  against  them  all. 

The  honourable  gentleman  argues,  that  if  this  government  be 
the  sole  judge  of  the  extent  of  its  own  powers,  whether  that 
right  of  judging  be  in  Congress  or  the  Supreme  Court,  it  equally 
subverts  State  sovereignty.  This  the  gentleman  sees,  or  thinks 
he  sees,  although  he  cannot  perceive  how  the  right  of  judging, 
in  this  matter,  if  left  to  the  exercise  of  State  legislatures,  has 
any  tendency  to  subvert  the  government  of  the  Union.  The 
gentleman's  opinion  may  be,  that  the  right  ought  not  to  have 
been  lodged  with  the  general  government ;  he  may  like  better 
such  a  constitution  as  we  should  have  under  the  right  of  State 
interference  ;  but  I  ask  him  to  meet  me  on  the  plain  matter  of 
fact.  I  ask  him  to  meet  me  on  the  Constitution  itself.  I  ask 
him  if  the  power  is  not  found  there,  clearly  and  visibly  found 
there  ? 

But,  Sir,  what  is  this  danger,  and  what  are  the  grounds  of  it? 
Let  if  be  remembered  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  is  not  unalterable.  It  is  to  continue  in  its  present  form 
no  longer  than  the  people  who  established  it  shall  choose  to 
continue  it.  If  they  shall  become  convinced  that  they  have 
made  an  injudicious  or  inexpedient  partition  and  distribution  of 
power  between  the  State  governments  and  the  general  govern- 
ment, they  can  alter  that  distribution  at  will. 

If  any  thing  be  found  in  the  national  Constitution,  either  by 
original  provision  or  subsequent  interpretation,  which  ought 
not  to  be  in  it,  the  people  know  how  to  get  rid  of  it.  If  any 
construction  be  established,  unacceptable  to  them,  so  as  to 
become,  practically,  a  part  of  the  Constitution,  they  will  amend 
it,  at  their  own  sovereign  pleasure.  But,  while  the  people 
choose  to  maintain  it  as  it  is  ;  while  they  are  satisfied  with  it, 
and  refuse  to  change  it ;  who  has  given,  or  who  can  give,  to  the 
State  legislatures  a  right  to  alter  it,  either  by  interl'eivnee, 
construction,  or  otherwise?  Gentlemen  do  not  seem  to  recol- 
lect that  the  people  have  any  power  to  do  any  thing  for  them- 
selves. They  imagine  there  is  no  safety  for  them,  any  longer 
than  they  are  under  the  close  guardians  hip  $>f  the  State  legisla- 


SPEECH   IX   REPLY  TO  HAYXE.  383 

tures.  Sir,  the  people  have  not  trusted  their  safety,  in  regard 
to  the  general  Constitution,  to  these  hands.  They  have  re- 
quired other  security,  and  taken  other  bonds.  They  have 
chosen  to  trust  themselves,  first,  to  the  plain  words  of  the 
instrument,  and  to  such  construction  as  the  government  itself, 
in  doubtful  ca>os,  should  put  on  its  own  powers,  under  their 
oaths  of  oll'ire,  and  subject  to  their  responsibility  to  them; 
just  as  tin1  people  of  a  State  trust  their  own  State  governments 
with  a  similar  power.  Secondly,  they  have  reposed  their  trust 
in  the  eflicacy  of  frequent  elections,  and  in  their  own  power  to 
remove  their  own  servants  and  agents,  whenever  they  see 
cause.  Thirdly,  they  have  reposed  trust  in  the  judicial  power, 
which,  in  order  that  it  might  be  trustworthy,  they  have  made 
as  respectable,  as  disinterested,  and  as  independent  as  was 
practicable.  Fourthly,  they  have  seen  fit  to  rely,  in  case  of 
necessity,  or  high  expediency,  on  their  known  and  admitted 
power  to  alter  or  amend  the  Constitution,  peaceably  and 
quietly,  whenever  experience  shall  point  out  defects  or  imper- 
fections. And,  finally,  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  at 
no  time,  in  no  way,  directly  or  indirectly,  authorized  any  State 
legislature  to  construe  or  interpret  their  high  instrument  of 
government;  much  less,  to  interfere,  by  their  own  power,  to 
arrest  its  course  and  operation. 

If,  Sir,  the  people  in  these  respects  had  done  otherwise  than 
they  have  done,  their  Constitution  could  neither  have  been 
preserved,  nor  would  it  have  been  worth  preserving.  And  if 
its  plain  provisions  shall  now  be  disregarded,  and  these  new 
doctrines  interpolated  in  it,  it  will  become  as  feeble  and  help- 
less a  being  as  its  enemies,  whether  early  or  more  recent,  could 
possibly  desire.  It  will  exist  in  every  State  but  as  a  poor  de- 
pendent on  State  permission.  It  must  borrow  leave  to  be  ;  and 
will  be  no  longer  than  State  pleasure,  or  State  discretion,  sees 
fit  to  grant  the  indulgence,  and  to  prolong  its  poor  existence. 

But,  Sir,  although  there  are  fears,  there  are  hopes  also. 
The  people  have  preserved  this  their  own  chosen  Constitution 
for  forty  years,  and  have  seen  their  happiness,  prosperity,  and 
renown  grow  with  its  growth,  and  strengthen  with  its  strength. 
They  are  now,  generally,  strongly  attached  to  it.  Overthrown 
by  direct  assault,  it  cannot  be ;  evaded,  undermined,  NULLI- 
FIED, it  will  not  be,  if  we,  and  those  who  shall  succeed  us  here, 
nts  and  representatives  of  the  people,  shall  conscien- 
tiously and  vigilantly  discharge  the  two  great  branches  of  our 
public  trust,  —  faithfully  to  preserve,  and  wisely  to  adnjinisterit. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  thus  stated  the  reasons  of  my  dissent 
to  the  doctrines  which  have  been  advanced  and  maintained.  I 
am  conscious  of  having  detained  you  and  the  Senate  much  too 


384  WEBSTER. 

long.  I  was  drawn  into  the  debate  with  no  previous  delibera- 
tion, such  as  is  suited  to  the  discussion  of  so  grave  and  impor- 
tant a  subject.  But  it  is  a  subject  of  which  my  heart  is  full, 
and  I  have  not  been  willing  to  suppress  the  utterance  of  its 
spontaneous  sentiments.  I  cannot,  even  now,  persuade  myself 
to  relinquish  it,  without  expressing,  once  more,  my  deep  con- 
viction that,  since  it  respects  nothing  less  than  the  Union  of 
the  States,  it  is  of  most  vital  and  essential  importance  to  the 
public  happiness.  I  profess,  Sir,  in  my  career  hitherto,  to  have 
kept  steadily  in  view  the  prosperity  and  honour  of  the  whole 
country,  and  the  preservation  of  our  Federal  Union.  It  is  to 
that  Union  we  owe  our  safety  at  home,  and  our  consideration 
and  dignity  abroad.  It  is  to  that  Union  that  we  are  chiefly 
indebted  for  whatever  makes  us  most  proud  of  our  country. 
That  Union  we  reached  only  by  the  discipline  of  our  virtues  in 
the  severe  school  of  adversity.  It  had  its  origin  in  the  necessi- 
ties of  disordered  finance,  prostrate  commerce,  and  ruined 
credit.  Under  its  benign  influences,  these  great  interests  im- 
mediately awoke,  as  from  the  dead,  and  sprang  forth  with 
newness  of  life.  Every  year  of  its  duration  has  teemed  with 
fresh  proofs  of  its  utility  and  its  blessings  ;  and,  although  our 
territory  has  stretched  out  wider  and  wider,  and  our  population 
spivad  further  and  further,  they  have  not  outrun  its  protection 
or  its  benefits.  Jt  has  been  to  us  all  a  copious  fountain  of 
national,  social,  and  personal  happiness. 

I  have  not  allowed  myself,  Sir,  to  look  beyond  the  Union,  to 
see  what  might  lie  hidden  in  the  dark  recess  behind.  I  have 
not  coolly  weighed  the  chances  of  preserving  liberty  when  the 
bonds  that  unite  us  together  shall  be  broken  asunder.  I  have 
not  accustomed  myself  to  hang  over  the  precipice  of  disunion, 
to  see  whether,  with  my  short  sight,  I  can  fathom  the  depth  of 
the  abyss  below  ;  nor  could  I  regard  him  as  a  safe  counsellor 
in  the  affairs  of  this  government,  whose  thoughts  should  be 
mainly  bent  on  considering,  not  how  the  Union  may  be  best 
preserved,  but  how  tolerable  might  be  the  condition  of  the 
people  when  it  shall  be  broken  up  and  destroyed.  While  the 
Union  lasts,  we  have  high,  exciting,  gratifying  prospects  spread 
out  before  us,  for  us  and  our  children.  Beyond  that  I  seek  not 
to  penetrate  the  veil.  God  grant  that,  in  my  day  at  least,  that 
curtain  may  not  rise  !  God  grant  that  on  my  vision  never  may 
be  opened  what  lies  behind  !  When  my  eyes  shall  be  turned  to 
behold,  for  the  last  time,  the  Sun  in  heaven,  may  I  not  see  him 
shining  on  the  broken  and  dishonoured  fragments  of  a  once 
glorious  Union ;  on  States  dissevered,  discordant,  belligerent ; 
on  a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be,  in  fra- 
ternal blood  !  .Let  their  last  feeble  and  lingering  glance  rather 


BLESSINGS  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.  385 

behold  the  gorgeous  ensign  of  the  republic,  now  known  and 
honoured  throughout  the  Earth,  still  full  high  advanced,  its 
arms  and  trophies  streaming  in  their  original  lustre,  not  a  stripe 
erased  or  polluted,  nor  a  single  star  obscured ;  bearing  for  its 
motto,  no  such  miserable  interrogatory,  as  "What  is  all  this 
worth?"  nor  those  other  words  of  delusion  and  folly,  "Liberty 
first,  and  Union  afterwards"  ;  but  everywhere,  spread  all  over 
in  characters  of  living  light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample  folds,  as 
they  iloat  over  the  sea  and  over  the  land,  and  in  every  wind 
under  the  whole  heavens,  that  other  sentiment,  dear  to  every 
true  American  heart, —  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  for  ever, 
one  and  inseparable  I 


BLESSINGS  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.7 

GENTLEMEN,  as  connected  with  the  Constitution,  you  have 
local  recollections  which  must  bind  it  still  closer  to  your  at- 
tachment and  affection.  It  commenced  its  being  and  its  bless- 
ings here.  It  was  in  this  city,  in  the  midst  of  friends,  anxious 
hopeful,  and  devoted,  that  the  new  government  started  in  its 
course.  To  us,  who  are  younger,  it  has  come  down  by  tradi- 
tion ;  but  some  around  me  are  old  enough  to  have  witnessed, 
and  did  witness,  the  interesting  scene  of  the  first  inauguration. 
They  remember  what  voices  of  gratified  patriotism,  what  shouts 
of  enthusiastic  hope,  what  acclamations  rent  the  air,  how  m«ny 
<•>•»•*  were  suffused  with  tears  of  joy,  how  cordially  each  man 
'.I  the  hand  of  him  who  was  next  to  him,  when,  standing 
in  the  open  air,  in  the  centre  of  the  city,  in  the  view  of  assem- 
bled thousands,  the  first  President  was  heard  solemnly  to  pro- 
nounce the  words  of  his  official  oath,  repeating  them  from  the 

7  This  very  noble  strain  of  discourse  is  fVom  a  speech  made  on  the  following 
occasion.  In  February,  1831,  soon  after  the  delivery  of  the  great  speech  in  reply 
to  Ilayno,  some  leading  gentlemen  of  New  York  invited  Webster  to  a  public 
dinner,  a^  a  mark  of  honour  for  his  powerful  championship  of  the  Union.  The 
dinner  took  place  in  the  City  Hotel  on  the  10th  of  March.  Chancellor  Kent  pro- 
sided  ;  and,  on  introducing  Webster  to  tho  assembly,  he  referred,  in  strong  and 
eloquent  terms,  to  the  great  Senator's  recent  work  in  Congress,  and  closed  with 
the  following:  ''Socrates  was  said  to  have  drawn  doAvn  philosophy  from  the 
Kkie--,  and  scattered  it  among  the  schools.  It  may  with  equal  truth  be  said  that 
eunstiuitional  law,  by  means  of  those  senatorial  discussions  and  the  master 
genius  that  guided  them,  was  rescued  from  the  archives  of  our  tribunals  and  the 
libraries  of  our  lawyers,  and  placed  under  the  oye,  and  submitted  to  the  judg- 
ment, of  the  American  people.  Their  verdict  is  with  us,  and  from  it  there  lies  no 
appeal." 


386  WEBSTER. 

lips  of  Chancellor  Livingston.  You  then  thought,  Gentlemen, 
that  the  great  work  of  the  Revolution  was  accomplished.  You 
then  felt  that  you  had  a  government;  that  the  United  States 
were  then,  indeed,  united.  Every  benignant  star  seemed  to 
shed  its  selectest  influence  on  that  auspicious  hour.  Ilnv  unv 
heroes  of  the  Eevolution  ;  here  were  sages  of  the  Convention  ; 
here  were  minds,  disciplined  and  schooled  in  all  the  various 
fortunes  of  the  country,  acting  now  in  several  relations,  but  all 
cooperating  to  the  same  great  end,  the  successful  administra- 
tion of  the  new  and  untried  Constitution.  And  he, —  how  shall 
I  speak  of  him?  —  he  was  at  the  head,  who  was  already  first  in 
war,  who  was  already  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  and 
who  was  now  shown  also,  by  the  unanimous  suffrage  of  the 
country,  to  be  first  in  peace. 

Gentlemen,  how  gloriously  have  the  hopes  then  indulged 
been  fulfilled  !  Whose  expectation  was  then  so-  sanguine,  I 
may  almost  ask  whose  imagination  then  so  extravagant,  as  to 
run  forward,  and  contemplate  as  probable  the  one  half  of  what 
has  been  accomplished  in  forty  years  ?  Who  among  you  can  go 
back  to  1789,  and  see  what  this  city,  and  this  country  too,  then 
were ;  and,  beholding  what  they  now  are,  can  be  ready  to 
consent  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  shall  be 
weakened,—  dishonoured, —  nullified  ? 

The  legislative  history  of  the  first  two  or  three  years  of  the 
government  is  full  of  instruction.  It  presents,  in  striking  light, 
the  evils  intended  to  be  remedied  by  the  Constitution,  and  the 
provisions  which  were  deemed  essential  to  the  remedy  of  those 
evils.  It  exhibits  the  country,  in  the  moment  of  its  change 
from  a  weak  and  ill-defined  confederacy  of  States  into  a  gen- 
eral, efficient,  but  still  restrained  and  limited  government.  It 
shows  the  first  working  of  our  peculiar  system,  moved,  as  it 
then  was,  by  master  hands. 

Gentlemen,  for  one,  I  confess  I  like  to  dwell  on  this  part  of 
our  history.  It  is  good  for  us  to  be  here.  It  is  good  for  us  to 
study  the  situation  of  the  country  at  this  period,  to  survey  its 
difficulties,  to  look  at  the  conduct  of  its  public  men,  to  see  how 
they  struggled  with  obstacles,  real  and  formidable,  and  how  glo- 
riously they  brought  the  country  out  of  its  state  of  depv- 
and  distress.  Truly,  Gentlemen,  these  founders  and  fathers  of 
the  Constitution  were  great  men,  and  thoroughly  furnished  for 
every  good  work.  All  that  reading  and  learning  could  do  ;  all 
that  talent  and  intelligence  could  do ;  and,  what  perhaps  is  still 
more,  all  that  long  experience  in  difficult  and  troubled  times, 
and  a  deep  and  intimate  practical  knowledge  of  the  condition  of 
the  country,  could  do, —  conspired  to  fit  them  for  the  great  busi- 
ness of  forming  a  general,  but  limited  government,  embracing 


BLESSINGS  OP  THE   CONSTITUTION.  387 

common  objects,  extending  over  all  the  States,  and  yet  touching 
the  power  of  the  States  no  further  than  those  common  objects 
require.  I  confess  I  love  to  linger  around  these  original  foun- 
tains, and  to  drink  deep  of  their  waters.  I  love  to  imbibe,  in  as 
full  measure  as  I  may,  the  spirit  of  those  who  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  government,  and  so  wisely  and  skilfully  balanced 
and  adjusted  its  bearings  and  proportions. 

Gentlemen,  what  I  have  said  of  the  benefits  of  the  Constitu- 
tion to  your  city  might  be  said,  with  little  change,  in  respect  to 
every  other  part  of  the  country.  Its  benefits  are  not  exclusive. 
What  has  it  left  undone,  which  any  government  could  do,  for 
the  whole  country  ?  In  what  condition  has  it  placed  us  ?  Where 
do  we  now  stand  ?  Are  we  elevated,  or  degraded,  by  its  opera<- 
tion  ?  What  is  our  condition  under  its  influence,  at  the  very 
moment  when  some  talk  of  arresting  its  power  and  breaking  its 
unity  ?  Do  we  not  feel  ourselves  on  an  eminence  ?  Do  we  not 
challenge  the  respect  of  the  whole  world?  What  has  placed  us 
thus  high  V  What  has  given  us  this  just  pride?  What  else  is 
it,  but  the  unrestrained  and  free  operation  of  that  same  Fed- 
eral Constitution  which  it  has  been  proposed  now  to  hamper, 
and  manacle,  and  nullify?  Who  is  there  among  us,  that, 
should  he  find  himself  on  any  spot  of  the  Earth  where  human 
beings  exist,  and  where  the  existence  of  other  nations  is  known, 
would  not  be  proud  to  say,  I  am  an  American?  I  am  a  country- 
man of  Washington?  I  am  a  citizen  of  that  Eepublic  which, 
although  it  has  suddenly  sprung  up,  yet  there  are  none  on  the 
globe  who  have  ears  to  hear,  and  have  not  heard  of  ;  who  have 
eyes  to  see,  and  have  not  read  of ;  who  know  any  thing,  and  yet 
do  not  know  of  its  existence  and  its  glory  ?  And,  Gentlemen, 
let  me  now  reverse  the  picture.  Let  me  ask,  who  there  is 
among  us,  if  he  were  to  be  found  to-morrow  in  one  of  the  civil- 
ized countries  of  Europe,  and  were  there  to  learn  that  this 
goodly  form  of  government  had  been  overthrown ;  that  the 
United  States  were  no  longer  united ;  that  a  death-blow  had 
been  struck  upon  their  bond  of  union ;  that  they  themselves 
had  destroyed  their  chief  good  and  their  chief  honour;  —  who 
is  there  whose  heart  would  not  sink  within  him?  Who  is  there 
who  would  not  cover  his  face  for  very  shame? 

At  this  very  moment,  Gentlemen,  our  country  is  a  general 
refuge  for  the  distressed  and  the  persecuted  of  other  nations. 
Whoever  is  in  affliction  from  political  occurrences  in  his  own 
country  looks  here  for  shelter.  Whether  he  be  republican, 
flying  from  the  oppression  of  thrones,  or  whether  he  be  mon- 
arch or  monarchist,  flying  from  thrones  that  crumble  and  fall 
under  or  around  him,  he  feels  equal  assurance  that,  if  he  get 


388  WEBSTER. 

foothold  on  our  soil,  his  person  will  be  safe,  and  his  rights 
will  be  respected. 

And  who  will  venture  to  say  that,  in  any  government  now 
existing  in  the  world,  there  is  greater  security  for  persons  or 
property  than  in  that  of  the  United  States  ?  We  have  tried 
these  popular  institutions  in  times  of  great  excitement  and 
commotion,  and  they  have  stood,  substantially,  firm  and  steady, 
while  the  fountains  of  the  great  political  deep  have  been  else- 
where broken  up ;  while  thrones,  resting  on  ages  of  proscrip- 
tion, have  tottered  and  fallen ;  and  while,  in  other  countries, 
the  earthquake  of  unrestrained  popular  commotion  has  swal- 
lowed up  all  law  and  all  liberty  and  all  right  together.  Our  gov- 
ernment has  been  tried  in  peace,  and  it  has  been  tried  in  war ; 
and  has  proved  itself  fit  for  both.  It  has  been  assailed  from 
without,  and  it  has  successfully  resisted  the  shock  ;  it  has  been 
disturbed  within,  and  it  has  effectually  quieted  the  disturbance. 
It  can  stand  trial,  it  can  stand  assault,  it  can  stand  adversity, 
it  can  stand  every  thing  but  the  marring  of  its  own  beauty,  and 
the  weakening  of  its  own  strength.  It  can  stand  every  thing 
but  the  effects  of  our  own  rashness  and  our  own  folly.  It 
can  stand  every  thing  but  disorganization,  disunion,  and 
nullification. 

It  is  a  striking  fact,  and  as  true  as  it  is  striking,  that  at  this 
very  moment,  among  all  the  principal  civilized  States  of  the 
world,  that  government  is  most  secure  against  the  danger  of 
popular  commotion,  which  is  itself  entirely  popular.  Certain  it 
is,  that,  in  these  times  of  so  much  popular  knowledge  and  so 
much  popular  activity,  those  governments  which  do  not  admit 
the  people  to  partake  in  their  administration,  but  keep  them 
under  and  beneath,  sit  on  materials  for  an  explosion,  which 
may  take  place  at  any  moment,  and  blow  them  into  a  thousand 
atoms. 

Gentlemen,  let  any  man  who  would  degrade  and  enfeeble  the 
national  Constitution,  let  any  man  who  would  nullify  its  laws, 
stand  forth  and  tell  us  what  he  would  wish.  What  dors  lu- 
propose?  Whatever  he  may  be,  and  whatever  substitute  he 
may  hold  forth,  I  am  sure  the  people  of  this  country  will  de- 
cline his  kind  interference,  and  hold  on  by  the  Constitution 
which  they  possess.  Any  one  who  would  willingly  destroy  it, 
I  rejoice  to  know,  would  be  looked  upon  with  abhorren> 
is  deeply  entrenched  in  the  regards  of  the  people.  Doubtless 
it  may  be  undermined  by  artful  and  long-continued  hostility; 
it  may  be  imperceptibly  weakened  by  secret  attack  ;  it  may  be 
insidiously  shorn  of  its  powers  by  slow  degrees  ;  the  public 
vigilance  may  be  lulled,  and  when  it  awakes  it  may  find  the 
Constitution  frittered  away.  In  these  modes,  or  some  of 


BLESSINGS  OF  THE   CONSTITUTION.  389 

them,  it  is  possible  that  the  union  of  the  States  may  be 
dissolved. 

But  if  the  general  attention  of  the  people  be  kept  alive,  if 
they  see  the  intended  mischief  before  it  is  effected,  they  will 
prevent  it  by  their  own  sovereign  power.  They  will  interpose 
themselves  between  the  meditated  blow  and  the  object  of  their 
regard  and  attachment.  Next  to  the  controlling  authority  of 
the  people  themselves,  the  preservation  of  the  government  is 
mainly  committed  to  those  who  administer  it.  If  conducted  in 
wisdom,  it  cannot  but  stand  strong.  Its  genuine,  original 
spirit  is  a  patriotic,  liberal,  and  generous  spirit ;  a  spirit  of  con- 
ciliation, of  moderation,  of  candour,  and  charity ;  a  spirit  of 
friendship,  and  not  a  spirit  of  hostility  toward  the  States ;  a 
spirit  careful  not  to  exceed,  and  equally  careful  not  to  relin- 
quish, its  just  powers.  While  no  interest  can  or  ought  to  feel 
itself  shut  out  from  the  benefits  of  the  Constitution,  none 
should  consider  those  benefits  as  exclusively  its  own.  Tho 
interests  of  all  must  be  consulted,  and  reconciled,  and  provided 
for,  as  far  as  possible,  that  all  may  perceive  the  benefits  of  a 
united  government. 

Among  other  things,  we  are  to  remember  that  new  States 
have  arisen,  possessing  already  an  immense  population,  spread- 
ing and  thickening  over  vast  regions  which  were  a  wilderness 
when  the  Constitution  was  adopted.  Those  States  are  not, 
like  Xew  York,  directly  connected  with  maritime  commerce. 
They  are  entirely  agricultural,  and  need  markets  for  con- 
sumption ;  and  they  need,  too,  access  to  those  markets.  It  is 
the  duty  of  the  government  to  bring  the  interests  of  these  new 
States  into  the  Union,  and  incorporate  them  closely  in  the 
family  compact.  Gentlemen,  it  is  not  impracticable  to  recon- 
cile these  various  interests,  and  so  to  administer  the  govern- 
ment as  to  make  it  useful  to  all.  It  was  never  easier  to  admin- 
ister the  government  than  it  is  now.  We  are  beset  with  none, 
or  with  few,  of  its  original  difficulties  ;  and  it  is  a  time  of  great 
general  prosperity  and  happiness.  Shall  we  admit  ourselves 
incompetent  to  carry  on  the  government,  so  as  to  be  satisfactory 
to  the  whole  country?  Shall  we  admit  that  there  has  so  little 
uded  to  us  of  the  wisdom  and  prudence  of  our  fathers? 
li  the  government  could  be  administered  in  Washington's 
time,  when  it  was  yet  new,  when  the  country  was  heavily  in 
debt,  when  foreign  relations  were  threatening,  and  when  Indian 
wars  pressed  on  the  frontiers,  can  it  not  be  administered  now? 
Let  us  not  acknowledge  ourselves  so  unequal  to  our  duties. 

Gentlemen,  on  the  occasion  referred  to  by  the  Chair,  it  be- 
came necessary  to  consider  the  judicial  power,  and  its  proper 
functions  under  the  Constitution.  In  every  free  and  balanced 


390  WEBSTER. 

government,  this  is  a  most  essential  and  important  power. 
Indeed,  I  think  it  is  a  remark  of  Mr.  Hume,  that  the  admin  is. 
tration  of  justice  seems  to  be  the  leading  object  of  institutions 
of  government ;  that  legislatures  assemble,  that  armies  are 
embodied,  that  both  war  and  peace  are  made,  with  a  sort  of 
ultimate  reference  to  the  proper  administration  of  laws,  and 
the  judicial  protection  of  private  rights.  The  judicial  power 
comes  home  to  every  man.  If  the  legislature  passes  incorrect 
or  unjust  general  laws,  its  members  bear  the  evil  as  M-ell  as 
others.  But  judicature  acts  on  individuals.  It  touches  ever}* 
private  right,  every  private  interest,  and  almost  every  private 
feeling.  What  we  possess  is  hardly  lit  to  be  called  our  own, 
unless  we  feel  secure  in  its  possession  ;  and  this  security,  this 
feeling  of  perfect  safety,  cannot  exist  under  a  wicked,  or  even 
under  a  weak  and  ignorant,  administration  of  the  laws.  There 
is  no  happiness,  there  is  no  liberty,  there  is  no  enjoyment  of 
life,  unless  a  man  can  say,  when  he  rises  in  the  morning,  I 
shall  be  subject  to  the  decision  of  no  unjust  judge  to-day. 

But,  Gentlemen,  the  judicial  department,  under  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  possesses  still  higher  duties.  It  is 
true,  that  it  may  be  called  on,  and  is  occasionally  called  on,  to 
decide  questions  which  are,  in  one  sense,  of  a  political  nature. 
The  general  and  State  governments,  both  established  by  the 
people,  are  established  for  different  purposes,  and  with  differ- 
ent powers.  Between  those  powers  questions  may  arise ;  and 
who  shall  decide  them?  Some  provision  for  this  end  is  abso- 
lutely necessary.  What  shall  it  be?  This  was  the  question 
before  the  Convention ;  and  various  schemes  were  suggested. 
It  was  foreseen  that  the  States  might  inadvertently  pass  laws 
inconsistent  with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  or  with 
Acts  of  Congress.  At  least,  laws  might  be  passed  which  would 
be  charged  with  such  inconsistency.  How  should  these  ques- 
tions be  disposed  of?  Where  shall  the  power  of  judging,  in 
case  of  alleged  interference,  be  lodged?  One  suggestion  in 
the  Convention  was,  to  make  it  an  executive  power,  and  to 
lodge  it  in  the  hands  of  the  President,  by  requiring  all  State 
laws  to  be  submitted  to  him,  that  he  might  negative  such  as  he 
thought  appeared  repugnant  to  the  general  Constitution.  This 
idea,  perhaps,  may  have  been  borrowed  from  the  power  exer- 
cised by  the  Crown  over  the  laws  of  the  Colonies.  It  would 
evidently  have  been  not  only  an  inconvenient  and  troubli 
proceeding,  but  dangerous  also  to  the  powers  of  the  State-;.  It 
was  not  pressed.  It  was  thought  wiser  and  safer,  on  the  whole, 
to  require  State  legislatures  and  State  judges  to  take  an  oath  to 
support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  theu  leave 
the  States  at  liberty  to  pass  whatever  laws  they  pleased,  and  if 


BLESSINGS  OF  THE   CONSTITUTION.  391 

interference,  in  point  of  fact,  should  arise,  to  refer  the  question 
to  judicial  decision.  To  this  end,  the  judicial  power,  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  was  made  coextensive  with 
the  legislative  power.  It  was  extended  to  all  cases  arising 
under  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  Congress.  The  judi- 
ciary became  thus  possessed  of  the  authority  of  deciding,  in 
the  last  resort,  in  all  cases  of  alleged  interference,  between 
State  laws  and  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  Congress. 

Gentlemen,  this  is  the  actual  Constitution,  this  is  the  law  of 
the  land.  There  may  be  those  who  think  it  unnecessary,  or  who 
would  prefer  a  different  mode  of  deciding  such  questions.  But 
this  is  the  established  mode,  and,  till  it  be  altered,  the  courts 
can  no  more  decline  their  duty,  on  these  occasions,  than  on 
other  occasions.  But  can  any  reasonable  man  doubt  the  expe- 
diency of  this  provision,  or  suggest  a  better?  Is  it  not  abso- 
lutely essential  to  the  peace  of  the  country  that  this  power 
should  exist  somewhere?  Where  can  it  exist,  better  than 
win-re  it  now  does  exist?  The  national  judiciary  is  the  com- 
mon tribunal  of  the  whole  country.  It  is  organized  by  the 
common  authority,  and  its  places  filled  by  the  common  agent. 
This  is  a  plain  and  practical  provision.  It  was  framed  by  no 
bunglers,  nor  by  any  wild  theorists.  And  who  can  say  that  it 
has  failed?  Who  can  find  substantial  fault  with  its  operation 
or  its  results?  The  great  question  is,  whether  we  shall  provide 
for  the  peaceable  decision  of  cases  of  collision.  Shall  they  be 
decided  by  law  or  by  force  ?  Shall  the  decisions  be  decisions 
of  peace,  or  decisions  of  war  ? 

( )n  the  occasion  which  has  given  rise  to  this  meeting,  the  prop- 
osition contended  for  in  opposition  to  the  doctrine  just  stated 
wns,  that  every  State,  under  certain  supposed  exigencies,  and  in 
certain  supposed  cases,  might  decide  for  itself,  and.  act  for 
itself,  and  oppose  its  own  force  to  the  execution  of  the  laws. 
By  what  argument  do  you  imagine,  Gentlemen,  that  such  a 
proposition  was  maintained?  I  might  call  it  metaphysical  and 
subtile ;  but  these  terms  would  imply  at  least  ingenuity,  and 
some  degree  of  plausibility  ;  whereas  the  argument  appears  to 
me  plain  assumption,  mere  perverse  construction  of  plain  lun- 
tfuugi!  in  the  body  of  the  Constitution  itself.  As  I  understand 
it,  when  put  forth  in  its  revised  and  most  authentic  shape,  it  is 
this:  That  the  Constitution  provides  that  any  amendments  may 
IH-  made  to  it  which  shall  be  agreed  to  by  three  fourths  of  the 
States:  there  is,  therefore,  to  be  nothing  in  the  Constitution  to 
which  three  fourths  of  the  States  have  not  agreed.  All  this  is 
true  ;  but  then  comes  this  inference,  namely,  that,  when  one 
State  denies  the  constitutionality  of  any  law  of  Congress,  she 
may  arrest  its  execution  as  to  herself,  and  keep  it  arrested,  till 


392  WEBSTER. 

the  States  can  all  be  consulted  by  their  conventions,  and  three 
fourths  of  them  shall  have  decided  that  the  law  is  constitu- 
tional. Indeed,  the  inference  is  still  stranger  than  this  :  for 
State  conventions  have  no  authority  to  construe  the  Constitu- 
tion, though  they  have  authority  to  amend  it ;  therefore  the 
argument  must  prove,  if  it  prove  any  thing,  that,  when  any  one 
State  denies  that  any  particular  power  is  included  in  the  Consti- 
tution, it  is  to  be  considered  as  not  included,  and  not  to  be 
found  there  till  three  fourths  of  the  States  agree  to  insert  it. 
In  short,  the  result  of  the  whole  is,  that,  though  it  requires 
three  fourths  of  the  States  to  insert  any  thing  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, yet  any  one  State  can  strike  any  thing  out  of  it.  For  the 
power  to  strike  out,  and  the  power  of  deciding,  without  appeal, 
upon  the  construction  of  what  is  already  in,  are  substantially 
and  practically  the  same. 

And,  Gentlemen,  what  a  spectacle  should  we  have  exhibited 
under  the  actual  operation  of  notions  like  these  I  At  the  very 
moment  when  our  government  was  quoted,  praised,  and  com- 
mended all  over  the  world  ;  when  the  friends  of  republican  lib- 
erty everywhere  were  gazing  at  it  with  delight,  and  were  in 
perfect  admiration  at  the  harmony  of  its  movements,  one  State 
steps  forth,  and,  by  the  power  of  nullification,  breaks  up  the 
whole  system,  and  scatters  the  bright  chain  of  the  Union  into 
as  many  sundered  links  as  there  are  separate  States  ! 

Seeing  the  true  grounds  of  the  Constitution  thus  attacked,  I 
raised  my  voice  in  its  favour,  I  must  confess,  with  no  prepara- 
tion or  previous  intention.  I  can  hardly  say  that  I  embarked  in 
the  contest  from  a  sense  of  duty.  It  was  an  instantaneous  im- 
pulse of  inclination,  not  acting  against  duty,  I  trust,  but  hardly 
waiting  for  its  suggestions.  I  felt  it  to  be  a  contest  for  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Constitution,  and  I  was  ready  to  enter  into  it,  not 
thinking,  or  caring,  personally,  how  I  might  come  out. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  true  pleasure  in  saying  that  I  trust  the 
crisis  has  in  some  measure  passed  by.  The  doctrines  of  nullifi- 
cation have  received  a  severe  and  stern  rebuke  from  public 
opinion.  The  general  reprobation  of  the  country  has  been  cast 
upon  them.  Recent  expressions  of  the  most  numerous  branch 
of  the  national  legislature  are  decisive  and  imposing.  Every- 
where, the  general  tone  of  public  feeling  is  for  the  Constitution. 
"While  much  will  be  yielded  —  everything,  almost,  but  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Constitution,  and  the  essential  interests  of  the 
country  —to  the  cause  of  mutual  harmony  and  mutual  concilia- 
tion, no  ground  can  be  granted,  not  an  inch,  to  menace  and 
bluster.  Indeed,  menace  and  bluster,  and  the  putting-forth 
of  daring  unconstitutional  doctrines,  are,  at  this  very  moment, 
the  chief  obstacles  to  mutual  harmony  and  satisfactory  accom- 


BLESSINGS  OF  THE   CONSTITUTION".  393 

modation.  Men  cannot  well  reason,  and  confer,  and  take  coun- 
sel together,  about  the  discreet  exercise  of  a  power,  with  those 
who  deny  that  any  such  power  rightfully  exists,  and  who 
threaten  to  blow  up  the  whole  Constitution  if  they  cannot 
otherwise  get  rid  of  its  operation.  It  is  matter  of  sincere  grati- 
fication, Gentlemen,  that  the  voice  of  this  great  State  has  been 
so  clear  and  strong,  and  her  vote  all  but  unanimous,  on  the 
most  interesting  of  these  occasions,  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. Certainly,  such  respect  to  the  Union  becomes  New 
York.  It  is  consistent  with  her  interests  and  her  character. 
That  singularly  prosperous  State  —  which  now  is,  and  is  likely 
to  continue  to  be,  the  greatest  link  in  the  chain  of  the  Union  — 
will  ever  be,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  the  strongest  link  also.  The 
great  States  which  lie  in  her  neighbourhood  agreed  with  her 
fully  in  this  matter.  Pennsylvania,  I  believe,  was  loyal  to  the 
Union,  to  a  man  ;  and  Ohio  raises  her  voice,  like  that  of  a  lion, 
against  whatsoever  threatens  disunion  and  dismemberment. 
This  harmony  of  sentiment  is  truly  gratifying.  It  is  not  to  be 
gainsaid,  that  the  union  of  opinion  in  this  great  central  mass  of 
our  population,  on  this  momentous  point  of  the  Constitution, 
augurs  well  for  our  future  prosperity  and  security. 

I  have  said,  Gentlemen,  what  I  verily  believe  to  be  true,  that 
there  is  no  danger  to  the  Union  from  open  and  avowed  attacks 
on  its  essential  principles.  Nothing  is  to  be  feared  from  those 
who  will  march  up  boldly  to  their  own  propositions,  and  tell  us 
that  they  mean  to  annihilate  powers  exercised  by  Congress. 
But,  certainly,  there  are  dangers  to  the  Constitution,  and  we 
ought  not  to  shut  our  eyes  to  them.  "VVe  know  the  importance 
of  a  firm  and  intelligent  judiciary:  but  how  shall  we  secure  the 
continuance  of  a  firm  and  intelligent  judiciary?  Gentlemen, 
the  judiciary  is  in  the  appointment  of  the  executive  power.  It 
cannot  continue  or  renew  itself.  Its  vacancies  are  to  be  filled 
in  the  ordinary  modes  of  executive  appointment.  If  the  time 
shall  ever  come,  (which  Heaven  avert !)  when  men  shall  be 
T>la<-(  (1  in  the  supreme  tribunal  of  the  country  who  entertain 
opinions  hostile  to  the  just  powers  of  the  Constitution,  we  shall 
then  be  visited  by  an  evil  defying  all  remedy.  Our  case  will  be 
past  surgery.  From  that  moment  the  Constitution  is  at  an  end. 
If  they  who  are  appointed  to  defend  the  castle  shall  betray  it, 
\v«  ><•  betide  those  within  1  If  I  live  to  see  that  day  come,  I  shall 
dospair  of  the  country.  I  shall  be  prepared  to  give  it  back  to 
all  its  former  afflictions,  in  the  days  of  the  Confederation.  I 
know  no  security  against  the  possibility  of  this  evil,  but  an 
awakened  public  vigilance.  I  know  no  safety,  but  in  that  state 
of  public  opinion  which  shall  lead  it  to  rebuke  and  put  down 
every  attempt,  either  to  gratify  party  by  judicial  appointments, 


394  WEBSTER. 

or  to  dilute  the  Constitution  by  creating  a  .court  which  shall 
construe  away  its  provisions.  If  members  of  Congress  betray 
their  trust,  the  people  will  find  it  out  before  they  are  ruined. 
If  the  President  should  at  any  time  violate  his  duty,  his  term  of 
office  is  short,  and  popular  elections  may  supply  a  seasonable 
remedy.  But  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  possess,  for 
very  good  reasons,  an  independent  tenure  of  office.  No  elec- 
tion reaches  them.  If,  with  this  tenure,  they  betray  their 
trusts,  Heaven  save  us  I  Let  us  hope  for  better  results.  The 
past,  certainly,  may  encourage  us.  Let  us  hope  that  wo  shall 
never  see  the  time  when  there  shall  exist  such  an  awkward  pos- 
ture of  affairs,  as  that  the  government  shall  be  found  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  Constitution,  and  when  the  guardians  of  the  Union 
shall  become  its  betrayers. 

Gentlemen,  our  country  stands,  at  the  present  time,  on  com- 
manding ground.  Older  nations,  with  different  systems  of 
government,  may  be  somewhat  slow  to  acknowledge  all  that 
justly  belongs  to  us.  But  we  may  feel  without  vanity,  that 
America  is  doing  her  part  in  the  great  work  of  improving 
human  affairs.  There  are  two  principles,  Gentlemen,  strictly 
and  purely  American,  which  are  now  likely  to  overrun  the 
civilized  world.  Indeed,  they  seem  the  necessary  result  of  the 
progress  of  civilization  and  knowledge.  These  are,  first,  popu- 
lar governments,  restrained  by  written  constitutions  ;  and, 
secondly,  universal  education.  Popular  governments  and  gen- 
eral education,  acting  and  reacting,,  mutually  producing  and 
reproducing  each  other,  are  the  mighty  agencies  which  in  our 
days  appear  to  be  exciting,  stimulating,  and  changing  civilized 
societies.  Man,  everywhere,  is  now  found  demanding  a  par- 
ticipation in  government, — and  he  will  not  be  refused  ;  and 
he  demands  knowledge  as  necessary  to  self-government.  On 
the  basis  of  these  two  principles,  liberty  and  knowledge,  our 
own  American  systems  rest.  Thus  far  we  have  not  been  disap- 
pointed in  their  results.  Our  existing  institutions,  raised  on 
these  foundations,  have  conferred  on  us  almost  unmixed  hap- 
piness. Do  we  hope  to  better  our  condition  by  change  ?  When 
we  shall  have  nullified  the  present  Constitution,  what  are  we 
to  receive  in  its  place?  As  fathers,  do  we  wish  for  our  children 
better  government  or  better  laws?  As  members  of  society,  as 
lovers  of  our  country,  is  there  any  thing  we  can  desire  for  it 
better  than  that,  as  ages  and  centuries  roll  over  it,  it  may 
possess  the  same  invaluable  institutions  which  it  now  enjoys  ? 
For  my  part,  Gentlemen,  I  can  only  say,  that  I  desire  to  thank 
the  beneficent  Author  of  all  good  for  being  born  tcJicre  I  was 
born,  and  when  I  was  born ;  that  the  portion  of  human  exist- 
ence allotted  to  me  has  been  meted  out  to  me  in  this  goodly 


PRESIDENTIAL   NULLIFICATION.  395 

land,  and  at  this  interesting  period.  I  rejoice  that  I  have  lived 
to  see  so  much  development  of  truth,  so  much  progress  of 
liberty,  so  much  diffusion  of  virtue  and  happiness.  And, 
through  good  report  and  evil  report,  it  will  be  my  consolation 
to  be  a  citizen  of  a  republic  unequalled  in  the  annals  of  the 
world  for  the  freedom  of  its  institutions,  its  high  prosperity, 
and  the  prospects  of  good  which  yet  lie  before  it.  Our  course, 
Gentlemen,  is  onward,  straight  onward,  and  forward.  Let  us 
not  turn  to  the  right  hand  nor  to  the  left.  Our  path  is  marked 
out  for  us,  clear,  plain,  bright,  distinctly  denned,  like  the  milky 
way  across  the  heavens.  If  we  are  true  to  our  country,  in  our 
day  and  generation,  and  those  who  come  after  us  shall  be  true 
to  it  also,  assuredly,  assuredly  we  shall  elevate  her  to  a  pitch 
of  prosperity  and  happiness,  of  honour  and  power,  never  yet? 
reached  by  any  nation  beneath  the  Sun. 


PRESIDENTIAL  NULLIFICATION.8 

proceed,  Sir,  to  a  few  remarks  upon  the  President's 
constitutional  objections  to  the  bank ;  and  I  cannot  forbear  to 
say,  in  regard  to  them,  that  he  appears  to  me  to  have  assumed 
very  extraordinary  grounds  of  reasoning.  He  denies  that  the 
constitutionality  of  the  bank  is  a  settled  question.  If  it  be  not, 
will  it  ever  become  so,  or  what  disputed  question  ever  can  be 
settled? 

As  early  as  1791,  after  great  deliberation,  the  first  bank 
charter  was  passed  by  Congress,  and  approved  by  President 
Washington.  It  established  an  institution,  resembling,  in  all 
things  now  objected  to,  the  present  bank.  That  bank,  like 
this,  could  take  lands  in  payment  of  its  debts  ;  that  charter, 
like  the  present,  gave  the  States  no  power  of  taxation ;  it 
allowed  foreigners  to  hold  stock ;  it  restrained  Congress  from 
creating  other  banks.  It  gave  also  exclusive  privileges,  and  in 

8  The  pages  which  follow  under  this  heading  are  from  a  speech  delivered  in 
.  ate,  July  ll,1832,on  President  Jackson's  Veto  of  the  bill  reehartcring 
I'm-  Hank  of  the  United  States.  That  speech  is,  I  think,  a  highly  instructive  and 
important  passage  in  Webster's  great  course  of  constitutional  expositions;  and 
I  here  reproduce  what  seem  to  me  the  main  points  of  his  argument.  It  id  not 
easy  to  see  how  the  President's  reasonings  in  his  veto  message  differ,  in  princi- 
ple, from  the  nullilication  doctrines  of  South  Carolina;  but  there  is  this  to  bo 
baid  of  OiM.Tal  Jackson,  that  he  was  too  honest  to  sec  the  nullification  element 
in  tho.-r  reasonings,  and  at  the  same  time  too  patriotic  and  too  determined  in 
character  to  tolerate  any  overt  act  of  nullification  in  another. 


30G  WEBSTER. 

all  particulars  it  was,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  message, 
as  objectionable  as  that  now  existing.  That  bank  continued 
twenty  years.  In  1816,  the  present  institution  was  established, 
and  has  been  ever  since  in  full  operation.  Now,  Sir,  the  ques- 
tion cf  the  power  of  Congress  to  create  such  institutions  has 
been  contested  in  every  manner  known  to  our  Constitution 
and  laws.  The  forms  of  the  government  furnish  no  new  mode 
in  which  to  try  this  question.  It  has  been  discussed  over  and 
over  again,  in  Congress ;  it  has  been  argued  and  solemnly 
adjudged  in  the  Supreme  Court ;  every  President,  except  the 
present,  has  considered  it  a  settled  question;  many  of  the 
State  legislatures  have  instructed  their  Senators  to  vote  for  the 
bank  ;  the  tribunals  of  the  States,  in  every  instance,  have  sup- 
ported its  constitutionality  ;  and,  beyond  all  doubt  and  dispute, 
the  general  public  opinion  of  the  country  has  at  all  times  given, 
and  does  now  give,  its  full  sanction  and  approbation  to  the 
exercise  of  this  power,  as  being  a  constitutional  power.  There 
has  been  no  opinion  questioning  the  power  expressed  or  inti- 
mated, at  any  time,  by  either  House  of  Congress,  by  any  Pres- 
ident, or  by  any  respectable  judicial  tribunal.  Now,  Sir,  if  this 
practice  of  near  forty  years  ;  if  these  repeated  exer<  i-rs  of  the 
power;  if  this  solemn  adjudication  of  the  Supreme  Court,  with 
the  concurrence  and  approbation  of  public  opinion, — do  not 
settle  the  question,  how  is  any  question  ever  to  be  settled, 
about  which  any  one  may  choose  to  raise  a  doubt? 

But  the  President  does  not  admit  the  authority  of  precedent 
Sir,  I  have  always  found  that  those  who  habitually  deny  most 
vehemently  the  general  force  of  precedent,  ami  assert  most 
strongly  the  supremacy  of  private  opinion,  are  yet,  of  all  men, 
most  tenacious  of  that  very  authority  of  precedent,  whenever 
it  happens  to  be  in  their  favour.  I  beg  leave  to  ask,  Sir,  upon 
what  ground,  except  that  of  precedent,  and  precedent  alone, 
the  President's  friends  have  placed  his  power  of  removal  from 
office?  No  such  power  is  given  by  the  Constitution,  in  terms, 
nor  anywhere  intimated,  throughout  the  whole  of  it;  no  para- 
graph or  clause  of  that  instrument  recognizes  such  a  power. 
To  say  the  least,  it  is  as  questionable,  and  has  l.t-cn  as  often 
questioned,  as  the  power  of  Congress  to  create  a  bank;  and. 
enlightened  by  what  has  passed  under  our  own  observation,  we 
now  see  that  it  is  of  all  powers  the  most  capable  of  flagrant 
abuse.9  Now,  Sir,  I  ask  again,  What  becomes  of  this  power,  it 

9  President  Jackson,  within  the  first  two  years  of  his  administration,  made 
not  less  than  two  thousand  removals  from  ofliee,  all  in  favour  of  his  party.  Tlu-n 
it  was  that  the  government  entered  upon  the  custom  of  using  the  whole  >}  >tem 
of  federal  offices  as  the  bribes  and  rewards  of  political  partisanship.  I'p  to  that 
time,  the  power  of  removal  had  been  exercised  only  in  a  few  extreme  cases. 


PRESIDENTIAL  NULLIFICATION.  397 

the  authority  of  precedent  be  taken  away  ?  It  has  all  along  been 
.  denied  to  exist ;  it  is  nowhere  found  in  the  Constitution ;  and 
its  recent  exercise,  or  — to  call  things  by  their  right  names—  its 
recent  abuse,  has,  more  than  any  other  single  cause,  rendered 
good  men  either  cool  in  their  affections  toward  the  government 
of  their  country  or  doubtful  of  its  long  continuance.  Yet>  there 
is  precedent  in  favour  of  this  power,  and  the  President  exercises 
it.  We  know,  Sir,  that,  without  the  aid  of  that  precedent,  his 
acts  could  never  have  received  the  sanction  of  this  body,  even 
at  a  time  when  his  voice  was  somewhat  more  potential  here 
than  it  now  is,  or,  as  I  trust,  ever  again  will  be.  Does  the 
President,  then,  reject  the  authority  of  all  precedent  except 
what  it  is  suitable  to  his  own  purposes  to  use  ?  And  does  he 
use,  without  stint  or  measure,  all  precedents  which  may  aug- 
ment his  own  power,  or  gratify  his  own  wishes? 

But  if  the  President  thinks  lightly  of  the  authority  of  Congress 
in  construing  the  Constitution,  he  thinks  still  more  lightly  of  the 
authority  of  the  Supreme  Court,  lie  asserts  a  right  of  individ- 
ual judgment  on  constitutional  questions,  which  is  totally  incon- 
sistent with  any  proper  administration  of  government,  or  any 
regular  execution  of  the  laws.  Social  disorder,  entire  uncer- 
tainty in  regard  to  individual  rights  and  individual  duties,  the 
-sation  of  legal  authority,  confusion,  the  dissolution  of  free 
government,  — all  these  are  the  inevitable  consequences  of  the 
principles  adopted  by  the  message,  whenever  they  shall  be 
carried  to  their  full  extent.  Hitherto  it  has  been  thought  that 
the  final  decision  of  constitutional  questions  belonged  to  the 
supreme  judicial  tribunal.  The  very  nature  of  free  govern- 
ment, it  has  been  supposed,  enjoins  this  ;  and  our  Constitution, 
moreover,  lias  been  understood  so  to  provide,  clearly  and  ex- 
pressly. It  is  true,  that  each  branch  of  the  legislature  has  an 
undoubted  right,  in  the  exercise  of  its  functions,  to  consider 
the  constitutionality  of  a  law  proposed  to  be  passed.  This  is 
naturally  a  part  of  its  duty ;  and  neither  branch  can  be  com- 
pelled to  pass  any  law,  or  do  any  other  act,  which  it  deems  to 
be  beyond  the  reach  of  its  constitutional  power.  The  Presi- 
dent has  the  same  right,  when  a  bill  is  presented  for  his  ap- 
proval ;  for  he  is  doubtless  bound  to  consider,  in  all  cases, 
whether  such  bill  be  compatible  with  the  Constitution,  and 
whether  he  can  approve  it  consistently  with  his  oath  of  office. 
But  when  a  law  has  been  passed  by  Congress,  and  approved  by 
the  President,  it  is  now  no  longer  in  the  power  either  of  the 
same  President  or  his  successors  to  say  whether  the  law  is 

Tin:  abuse  of  it  has  since  done  more  perhaps  than  any  other  one  thing  to  corrupt 
and  debauch  our  politics. 


398  WEBSTER. 

constitutional  or  not.  He  is  not  at  liberty  to  disregard  it ;  he 
is  not  at  liberty  to  feel  or  affect  "constitutional  scruples,"  and 
to  sit  in  judgment  himself  on  the  validity  of  a  statute  of  the 
government,  and  to  nullify  it,  if  he  so  chooses.  After  a  law 
has  passed  through  all  the  requisite  forms,  after  it  has  received 
the  requisite  legislative  sanction  and  the  executive  approval, 
the  question  of  its  constitutionality  then  becomes  a  judicial 
question,  and  a  judicial  question  alone.  In  the  courts  that 
question  may  be  raised,  argued,  and  adjudged ;  it  can  be  ad- 
judged nowhere  else. 

The  President  is  as  much  bound  by  the  law  as  any  private 
citizen,  and  can  no  more  contest  its  validity  than  any  private 
citizen.  He  may  refuse  to  obey  the  law,  and  so  may  a  privuu- 
citizen;  but  both  do  it  at  their  own  peril,  and  neither  of  them 
can  settle  the  question  of  its  validity.  The  President  may  w//a 
law  is  unconstitutional,  but  he  is  not  the  judge.  Who  is  to 
decide  that  question?  The  judiciary  alone  p  -his  un- 

questionable and  hitherto  unquestioned  right.  The  judiciary  is 
the  constitutional  tribunal  of  appeal,  for  the  citizen-,  a;.,uinst 
both  Congress  and  the  executive,  in  regard  to  the  constitution- 
ality of  laws.  It  has  this  jurisdiction  expressly  conferred  upon 
it;  and  when  it  has  decided  the  question,  its  judgment  must, 
from  the  very  nature  of  all  judgments  from  which  there  is  no 
appeal,  be  conclusive.  Hitherto,  this  opinion,  and  a  cor, 
pondent  practice,  have  prevailed,  in  America,  with  all  wise  and 
considerate  men.  If  it  were  otherwise,  there  would  be  no  gov- 
ernment of  laws  ;  but  we  should  all  live  under  the  government, 
the  rule,  the  caprices  of  individuals. 

On  the  argument  of  the  message,  the  President  of  the  Tinted 
States  holds,  under  a  new  pretence  and  a  new  name,  a  </<',^. 
•huj  power  over  the  laws  as  absolute  as  was  claimed  by  Jai 
the  Second  of  England,  a  month  before  he  was  compelled  to  lly 
the  kingdom.  That  which  is  now  claimed  by  the  President  is 
in  truth  nothing  less,  and  nothing  else,  than  the  old  dispensing 
power  asserted  by  the  Kings  of  England  in  the  worst  of  tini 
the  very  climax  indeed  of  all  the  preposterous  pretensions  of 
the  Tudor  and  the  Stuart  races.  According  to  the  doctrines 
put  forth  by  the  President,  although  Congress  may  have  passed 
:i  law,  and  although  the  Supreme  Court  may  have  pronounced 
it  constitutional,  yet  it  is,  nevertheless,  no  law  at  all,  if  he,  in 
his  good  pleasure,  sees  fit  to  deny  it  effect;  in  other  words,  to 
repeal  and  annul  it.  Sir,  no  President  and  no  public  man  ever 
before  advanced  such  doctrines  in  the  face  of  the  nation. 
There  never  before  was  a  moment  in  which  any  President 
would  have  been  tolerated  in  asserting  such  a  claim  to  despotic 
power.  It  is  no  bank  to  be  created,  it  is  no  law  proposed  to  be 


PKESIDENTIAL  NULLIFICATION.  399 

passed,  which  the  President  denounces ;  it  is  the  law  now  exist- 
ing, passed  by  Congress,  approved  by  President  Madison,  and 
sanctioned  by  a  solemn  judgment  of  the  Supreme  Court,  which 
he  now  declares  unconstitutional,  and  which,  of  course,  so  far 
as  it  may  depend  on  him,  cannot  be  executed. 

If  the  reasoning  of  the  message  be  well  founded,  it  is  clear 
that  the  charter  of  the  existing  bank  is  not  a  law.  The  bank 
has  no  legal  existence  ;  it  is  not  responsible  to  government ;  it 
has  no  authority  to  act ;  it  is  incapable  of  being  an  agent ;  the 
President  may  treat  it  as  a  nullity,  to-morrow;  withdraw  from 
it  all  the  public  deposits,  and  set  afloat  all  the  existing  national 
arrangements  of  revenue  and  finance.  It  is  enough  to  state, 
these  monstrous  consequences,  to  show  that  the  doctrine,  prin- 
ciples, and  pretensions  of  the  message  are  entirely  inconsistent 
with  a  government  of  laws.  If  that  which  Congress  has  en- 
acted, and  the  Supreme  Court  has  sanctioned,  be  not  the  law 
of  the  land,  then  the  reign  of  law  has  ceased,  and  the  reign  of 
individual  opinion  has  already  begun. 

There  is  another  sentiment  in  this  part  of  the  message,  which 
we  should  hardly  have  expected  to  find  in  a  paper  which  is  sup- 
posed, whoever  may  have  drawn  it  up,  to  have  passed  under 
the  review  of  professional  characters.  The  message  declares 
that  the  limitation  to  create  no  other  bank  is  unconstitutional, 
because,  although  Congress  may  use  the  discretion  vested  in 
them,  "they  may  not  limit  the  discretion  of  their  successors." 
This  reason  is  almost  too  superficial  to  require  an  answer. 
Every  one,  at  all  accustomed  to  the  consideration  of  such  sub- 
jects, knows  that  every  Congress  can  bind  its  successors  to  the 
same  extent  that  it  can  bind  itself.  The  power  of  Congress  is 
always  th.- same;  the  authority  of  law  always  the  same.  It  is 
true,  we  speak  of  the  Twentieth  Congress  and  the  Twenty-first 
Congress ;  but  this  is  only  to  denote  the  period  of  time,  or  to 
mark  the  successive  organizations  of  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives under  the  successive  periodical  elections  of  its  members. 
A*a  politic  body,.as  the  legislative  power  of  the  government, 
Congress  is  always  continuous,  always  identical.  A  particular 
Congress,  as  we  speak  of  it,— for  instance,  the  present  Congress, 
—  can  no  further  restrain  itself  from  doing  what  it  may  choose 
to  do  at  the  next  session,  than  it  can  restrain  any  succeeding 
Congress  from  doing  what  it  may  choose.  Any  Congress  may 
repeal  the  Act  or  law  of  its  predecessors,  if  in  its  nature  it  be 
repealable,  just  as  it  may  repeal  its  own  Act;  and  if  a  law  or  an 
Act  be  irrepealable  in  its  nature,  it  can  no  more  be  repealed  by 
a.  subsequent  Congress  than  by  that  which  passed  it.  All  this 
is  familiar  to  everybody.  And  Congress,  like  every  other  legis- 
lature, often  passes  Acts  which,  being  in  the  nature  of  grants 


400  WEBSTEK. 

or  contracts,  are  irrepealable  ever  afterwards.  The  message, 
in  a  strain  of  argument  which  it  is  difficult  to  treat  with  ordi- 
nary respect,  declares  that  this  restriction  on  the  power  of 
Congress,  as  to  the  establishment  of  other  banks,  is  a  palpable 
attempt  to  amend  the  Constitution  by  an  Act  of  legislation. 
The  reason  on  which  this  observation  purports  to  be  founded 
is,  that  Congress,  by  the  Constitution,  is  to  have  exclusive  leg- 
islation over  the  District  of  Columbia ;  and  when  the  bank 
charter  declares  that  Congress  will  create  no  new  bank  within 
the  District,  it  annuls  this  power  of  exclusive  legislation  !  I 
must  say  that  this  reasoning  hardly  rises  high  enough  to  enti- 
tle it  to  a  passing  notice.  It  would  be  doing  it  too  much  credit 
to  call  it  plausible.  No  one  needs  to  be  informed  that  exclu- 
sive power  of  legislation  is  not  unlimited  power  of  legislation  ; 
and  if  it  were,  how  can  that  legislative  power  be  unlimited  that 
cannot  restrain  itself,  that  cannot  bind  itself  by  contract? 
"Whether  as  a  government  or  as  an  individual,  that  being  is  fet- 
tered and  restrained  which  is  not  capable  of  binding  itself  by 
ordinary  obligation.  Every  legislature  binds  itself,  whenever 
it  makes  a-  grant,  enters  into  a  contract,  bestows  an  ollice,  or 
does  any  other  act  or  thing  which  is  in  its  nature  irrepealable. 
And  this,  instead  of  detracting  from  its  legislative  pov 
one  of  the  modes  of  exercising  that  power.  And  the  legislative 
power  of  Congress  over  the  District  of  Columbia  would  not  be 
full  and  complete,  if  it  might  not  make  just  such  a  stipulation 
as  the  bank  charter  contains. 

What  I  have  now  been  considering-  are  the  President's  objec- 
tions, not  to  the  policy  or  expediency,  but  to  the  constitutional- 
ity of  the  bank  ;  and  not  to  the  constitutionality  of  any  new  or 
proposed  bank,  but  of  the  bank  as  it  now  is,  and  as  it  has  long 
existed.  If  the  President  had  declined  to  approve  this  bill 
because  he  thought  the  original  charter  unwisely  granted,  and 
the  bank,  in  point  of  policy  and  expediency,  objectionable  or 
mischievous,  and  in  that  view  only  had  suggested  the  reasons 
now  urged  by  him,  his  argument,  however  inconclusive,  would 
have  been  intelligible,  and  not,  in  its  whole  frame  and  scope, 
inconsistent  with  all  well-established  first  principles.  His  re- 
jection of  the  bill,  in  that  case,  would  have  been,  no  doubt,  an 
extraordinary  exercise  of  power  ;  but  it  would  have  been,  never- 
theless, the  exercise  of  a  power  belonging  to  his  ofliee,  and 
trusted  by  the  Constitution  to  his  discretion.  But  when  he 
puts  forth  an  array  of  arguments,  such  as  the  message  employs, 
not  against  the  expediency  of  the  bank,  but  against  its  constitu- 
tional existence,  he  confounds  all  distinctions,  mixes  questions 
of  policy  and  questions  of  right  together,  and  turns  all  consti- 
tutional restraints  into  mere  matters  of  opinion.  As  far  as  its 


PRESIDENTIAL  NULLIFICATION".  401 

power  extends  either  in  its  direct  effects,  or  as  a  precedent,  the 
message  not  only  unsettles  every  thing  which  has  been  settled 
under  the  Constitution,  but  would  show,  also,  that  the  Consti- 
tution itself  is  utterly  incapable  of  any  fixed  construction  or 
definite  interpretation,  and  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  estab- 
lishing, by  its  authority,  any  practical  limitations  on  the  powers 
of  the  respective  branches  of  the  government. 

AY  hen  the  message  denies,  as  it  does,  the  authority  of  the 
Supreme  Court  to  decide  on  constitutional  questions,  it  effects, 
so  far  as  the  opinion  of  the  President  and  his  authority  can 
effect,  a  complete  change  in  our  government.  It  does  two 
things:  first,  it  converts  constitutional  limitations  of  power  into 
mere  matters  of  opinion,  and  then  it  strikes  the  judicial  depart- 
ment, as  an  efficient  department,  out  of  our  system.  But  the 
message  by  no  means  stops  even  at  this  point.  Having  denied 
to  Congress  the  authority  of  judging  what  powers  may  be  con- 
stitutionally conferred  on  a  bank,  and  having  erected  the  judg- 
ment of  the  President  himself  into  a  standard  by  which  to  try 
the  constitutional  character  of  such  powers,  and  having  de- 
nounced the  authority  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  decide  finally 
on  constitutional  questions,  the  message  proceeds  to  claim  for 
the  President,  not  the  power  of  approval,  but  the  primary 
power,  the  power  of  originating  laws.  The  President  informs 
Congress,  that  he  would  have  sent  them  such  a  charter,  if  it  had 
been  properly  asked  for,  as  they  ought  to  confer.  He  very 
plainly  intimates  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  establishment  of  all 
laws,  of  this  nature  at  least,  belongs  to  the  functions  of  the 
executive  government ;  and  that  Congress  ought  to  have  waited 
for  the  manifestation  of  the  executive  will,  before  it  presumed 
to  touch  the  subject.  Such,  Mr.  President,  stripped  of  their 
disguises,  are  the  real  pretences  set  up  in  behalf  of  the  execu- 
tive power  in  this  most  extraordinary  paper. 

Mr.  President,  we  have  arrived  at  a  new  epoch.  "We  are  en- 
tering on  experiments,  with  the  government  and  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  country,  hitherto  untried,  and  of  fearful  and  appalling 
aspect.  This  message  calls  us  to  the  contemplation  of  a  future 
which  little  resembles  the  past.  Its  principles  are  at  war  with 
all  that  public  opinion  has  sustained,  and  all  which  the  experi- 
ence of  the  government  has  sanctioned.  It  denies  first  princi- 
ples ;  it  contradicts  truths  heretofore  received  as  indisputable. 
It  denies  to  the  judiciary  the  interpretation  of  law,  and  claims 
to  divide  with  Congress  the  power  of  originating  statutes.  It 
extends  the  grasp  of  executive  pretension  over  every  power  of 
the  government.  I3ut  this  is  not  all.  It  presents  the  chief 
magistrate  of  the  Union  in  the  attitude  of  arguing  away  the 
powers  of  that  government  over  which  he  has  been  chosen  to 


402  WEBSTER. 

preside ;  and  adopting  for  this  purpose  modes  of  reasoning 
which,  even  under  the  influence  of  all  proper  feeling  towards 
high  official  station,  it  is  difficult  to  regard  as  respectable.  It 
appeals  to  every  prejudice  which  may  betray  men  into  a  mis- 
taken view  of  their  own  interests,  and  to  every  passion  -which 
may  lead  them  to  disobey  the  impulses  of  their  understanding. 
It  urges  all  the  specious  topics  of  State  rights  and  national  en- 
croachment against  that  which  a  great  majority  of  the  States 
have  affirmed  to  be  rightful,  and  in  which  all  of  them  have 
acquiesced.  It  sows,  in  an  unsparing  manner,  the  seeds  of 
jealousy  and  ill-will  against  that  government  of  which  its 
author  is  the  official  head.  It  raises  a  cry,  that  liberty  is  in 
danger,  at  the  very  moment  when  it  puts  forth  claims  to  powers 
heretofore,  unknown  and  unheard  of.  It  affects  alarm  for  the 
public  freedom,  when  nothing  endangers  that  freedom  so  much 
as  its  own  unparalleled  pretences.  This,  even,  is  not  all.  It 
manii'estly  seeks  to  inflame  the  poor  against  the  rich;  it  wan- 
tonly attacks  whole  classes  of  the  people,  for  the  purpose  of 
turning  against  them  the  prejudices  and  the  resentments  of 
other  classes.  It  is  a  State  paper  which  finds  no  topic  too  excit- 
ing for  its  use,  no  passion  too  inflammable  for  its  address  and 
its  solicitation. 

Such  is  this  message.  It  remains  now  for  the  people  of  the 
United  States  to  choose  between  the  principles  here  avowed 
and  their  government.  These  cannot  subsist  together.  The 
one  or  the  other  must  be  rejected.  If  the  sentiments  of  the 
message  shall  receive  general  approbation,  the  Constitution  will 
have  perished  even  earlier  than  the  moment  which  its  enemies 
originally  allowed  for  the  termination  of  its  existence.  It  will 
not  have  survived  to  its  fiftieth  year. 


THE  SPOILS  TO  THE  VICTORS.10 

I  BEGIX  with  the  subject  of  removals  from  office  for  opin- 
ion's sake,— one  of  the  most  signal  instances  of  the  attempt  to 
extend  executive  power.  This  has  been  a  leading  measure,  a 
cardinal  point,  in  the  course  of  the  administration.  Jt  lias 
proceeded,  from  the  first,  on  a  settled  system  of  proscription 

10  In  (lie  Fall  of  183-2,  a  National  Republican  Convention  being1  held  at  Wor- 
cester, Mas.-achusetts,  Webster  addressed  the  body  in  a  speech  of  considerable 
length,  reviewing  the  course  of  the  administration.  Among  the  various  topics 
r.rged  by  him.  the  J'ivside:>tial  abuse  of  the  power  of  removal  from  ofllce  was 
y  made  prominent.  "  To  the  victors  belong  the  spoils  "  had  then  grown  into 


THE  SPOILS  TO  THE  VICTORS.  403 

for  political  opinions ;  and  this  system  it  has  carried  into  ope- 
ration to  the  full  extent  of  its  ability.  The  President  has  not 
only  filled  all  vacancies  with  his  own  friends,  generally  those 
most  distinguished  as  personal  partisans,  but  he  has  turned 
out  political  opponents,  and  thus  created  vacancies,  in  order 
that  he  might  fill  them  with  his  own  friends.  I  think  the 
number  of  removals  and  appointments  is  said  to  be  two  thou- 
sand. While  the  administration  and  its  friends  have  been 
attempting  to  circumscribe  and  to  decry  the  powers  belonging 
to  other  branches,  it  has  thus  seized  into  its  own  hands  a  pat- 
ronage most  pernicious  and  corrupting,  an  authority  over  men's 
means  of  living  most  tyrannical  and  odious,  and  a  power  to 
punish  free  men  for  political  opinions  altogether  intolerable. 

You  will  remember,  Sir,  that  the  Constitution  says  not  one 
word  about  the  President's  power  of  removal  from  office.  It  is 
a  power  raised  entirely  by  construction.  It  is  a  constructive 
power,  introduced,  at  first>  to  meet  cases  of  extreme  public 
necessity.  It  has  now  become  coextensive  with  the  executive 
will,  calling  for  no  necessity,  requiring  no  exigency,  for  its 
exercise  ;  to  be  employed  at  all  times,  without  control,  without 
question,  without  responsibility.  When  the  question  of  the 
President's  power  of  removal  was  debated  in  the  first  Congress, 
those  who  argued  for  it  limited  it  to  extreme  cases.  Cases,  they 
said,  might  arise  in  which  it  would  be  absolutely  necessary  to 
remove  an  officer  before  the  Senate  could  be  assembled.  An 
officer  might  become  insane ;  he  might  abscond  :  and  from 
these  and  other  supposable  cases,  it  was  said,  the  public  service 
might  materially  suffer,  if  the  President  could  not  remove  the 
incumbent.  And  it  was  further  said,  that  there  was  little  or  no 
danger  of  the  abuse  of  the  power  for  party  or  personal  objects. 
Xo  President,  it  was  thought,  would  ever  commit  such  an  out- 
rage on  public  opinion.  Mr.  Madison,  who  thought  the  power 
ought  to  exist,  and  to  be  exercised  in  cases  of  high  necessity, 
declared,  nevertheless,  that  if  a  President  should  resort  to  the 
power  when  not  required  by  any  public  exigency,  and  merely 
for  personal  objects,  he  would  deserve  to  be  impeached.  By  a 
very  small  majority, —  I  think,  in  the  Senate,  by  the  cast- 
ing vote  of  the  Vice-President, —  Congress  decided  in  favour 

common  use  as  a  sort  of  maxim  or  proverb  suited  to  the  case:  I  well  remember 
liavinj?  often  beard  it  quoted  by  the  partisans  of  the  President  as  a  just  and  safe 
rule  of  action  in  regard  to  the  official  patronage  of  the  government.  Probably 
a  more  immoral  and  debasing  principle  was  never  invoked,  to  help  on  the  work 
of  political  corruption;  and  Webster  had  good  reason  to  be  alarmed  at  the  ex- 
traordinary change  of  habit  thus  inaugurated  in  our  National  State.  The  whole 
speech  is  exceedingly  able,  of  course;  but  there  is,  I  think,  something  of  special 
cause  why  the  part  here  given  should  be  kept  in  mind. 


404  WEBSTER. 

of  the  existence  of  the  power  of  removal,  upon  the  grounds 
which  I  have  mentioned ;  granting  the  power  in  a  case  of 
clear  and  absolute  necessity,  and  denying  its  existence  every- 
where else. 

Mr.  President,  we  should  recollect  that  this  question  was 
discussed,  and  thus  decided,  when  Washington  was  in  the 
executive  chair.  Men  knew  that  in  his  hands  the  power  would 
not  be  abused ;  nor  did  they  conceive  it  possible  that  any  of  his 
successors  could  so  far  depart  from  his  groat  and  bright  ex- 
ample, as,  by  the  abuse  of  the  power,  and  by  carrying  that 
abuse  to  its  utmost  extent,  to  change  the  essential  character  of 
the  executive  from  that  of  an  impartial  guardian  and  executor 
of  the  laws  into  that  of  the  chief  dispenser  of  party  rewards. 
Three  or  four  instances  of  removal  occurred  in  the  first  twelve 
years  of  the  government.  At  the  commencement  of  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson's administration,  he  made  several  others,  not  without 
producing  much  dissatisfaction  ;  so  much  so,  that  he  thought 
it  expedient  to  give  reasons  to  the  people,  in  a  public  paper,  for 
even  the  limited  extent  to  which  he  had  exercised  the  power. 
He  rested  his  justification  on  particular  circumstances  and 
peculiar  grounds  ;  which,  whether  substantial  or  not,  showed 
at  least  that  he  did  not  regard  the  power  of  removal  as  an 
ordinary  power,  still  less  as  a  mere  arbitrary  one,  to  be  used 
as  he  pleased,  for  whatever  ends  he  pleased,  and  without 
responsibility.  As  far  as  I  remember,  Sir,  after  the  early  part 
of  Mr.  Jefferson's  administration,  hardly  an  instance  occurred 
for  near  thirty  years.  If  there  were  any  instances,  they  were 
few.  But  at  the  commencement  of  the  present  administration, 
the  precedent  of  these  previous  cases  was  seized  on,  and  a 
system-,  a  regular  plan  of  government,  a  well-considered  scheme 
for  the  maintenance  of  party  power  by  the  patronage  of  office, 
and  this  patronage  to  be  created  by  general  removal,  was 
adopted,  and  has  been  carried  into  full  operation.  Indeed,  be- 
fore General  Jackson's  inauguration,  the  party  put  the  system 
into  practice.  In  the  last  session  of  Mr.  Adams's  administra- 
tion, the  friends  of  General  Jackson  constituted  a  majority  in 
the  Senate  ;  and  nominations,  made  by  .Mr.  Adams  to  fill  va- 
cancies which  had  occurred  in  the  ordinary  way,  were  post- 
poned, by  this  majority,  beyond  the  third  of  March,  for  the  pur- 
pose, openly  avowed,  cf  giving  the  nominations  to  General  Jackxfm. 
A  nomination  for  a  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  many 
others  of  less  magnitude,  were  thus  disposed  of. 

And  what  did  we  witness,  Sir,  when  the  administration 
actually  commenced,  in  the  full  exercise  of  its  authority  ?  One 
universal  sweep,  one  undistinguishing  blow,  levelled  against 
all  who  were  not  of  the  successful  party.  No  worth,  public  or 


THE   SPOILS  TO  THE  VICTORS.  405 

private,  no  service,  civil  or  military,  was  of  power  to  resist  the 
relentless  greediness  of  proscription.  Soldiers  of  the  late  war, 
soldiers  of  the  Revolutionary  war,  the  very  contemporaries  of 
the  liberties  of  the  country,  all  lost  their  situations.  No  office 
was  too  high,  and  none  too  low  ;  for  office  was  the  spoil,  and  all 
the  spoil*,  it  is  said,  belong  to  the  victors!  If  a  man,  holding  an 
office  necessary  for  his  daily  support,  had  presented  himself 
covered  with  the  scars  of  wounds  received  in  every  battle,  from 
Bunker  Hill  to  Yorktown,  these  would  not  have  protected  him 
against  this  reckless  rapacity.  Nay,  Sir,  if  Warren  himself  had 
been  among  the  living,  and  had  possessed  any  office  undpr  gov- 
ernment, high  or  low,  he  would  not  have  been  suffered  to  hold 
it  a  single  hour,  unless  he  could  show  that  he  had  strictly  com- 
plied with  the  party  statutes,  and  h.ad  put  a  well-marked  party 
collar  round  hi5*  own  neck.  Look,  Sir,  to  the  case  of  the  late 
venerable  Majcr  Melville.  He  was  a  personification  of  the 
spirit  of  1770,  one  of  the  very  first  to  venture  in  the  cause  of  lib- 
erty. He  was  of  the  Tea-Party  ;  one  of  the  very  first  to  expose 
himself  to  British  power.  And  his  whole  life  was  consonant 
with  this  its  beginning.  Always  ardent  in  the  cause  of  liberty ; 
always  a  zealous  friend  to  his  country  ;  always  acting  with  the 
party  which  he  supposed  cherished  the  genuine  republican 
spirit  most  fervently  ;  always  estimable  and  respectable  in  pri- 
vate life,— he  seemed  armed  against  this  miserable  petty  tyr- 
anny of  party  as  far  as  man  could  be.  But  he  felt  its  blow,  and 
he  loll.  He  held  an  office  in  the  custom-house,  and  had  held  it 
for  a  long  course  of  years  ;  and  he  was  deprived  of  it,  as  if  un- 
worthy to  serve  the  country  which  he  loved,  and  for  whose 
liberties,  in  the  vigour  of  his  early  manhood,  he  had  thrust 
himself  into  the  very  jaws  of  its  enemies.  There  was  no  mis- 
take in  the  matter.  His  character,  his  standing,  his  Revolu- 
tionary services,  were  all  well  known  ;  but  they  were  known  to 
no  purpose  ;  they  weighed  not  one  feather  against  party  preten- 
sions. It  cost  no  pains  to  remove  him  ;  it  cost  no  compunction 
to  wring  his  aged  heart  with  this  retribution  from  his  country 
for  his  services,  his  zeal,  and  his  fidelity.  Sir,  you  will  bear 
witness  that,1  when  his  successor  was  nominated  to  the  Senate, 
and  the  Senate  was  told  who  it  was  that  had  been  removed  to 
make  way  for  that  nomination,  its  members  were  struck  with 
horror.  They  had  not  conceived  the  administration  to  be  capa- 
ble of  such  a  thing ;  and  yet,  they  said,  What  can  we  do?  The 
man  is  removed;  we  cannot  recall  him  ;  we  can  only  act  upon 
the  nomination  before  us  V  Sir,  you  and  I  thought  otherwise  ; 

1    The  Hon.  Nathaniel  Silsbee,  Webster's  colleague  in  the  Senate  at  the  time 
referred  to,  was  President  of  the  Worcester  Convention. 


40G  WEBSTER. 

and  I  rejoice  that  we  did  think  otherwise.  We  thought  it  our 
duty  to  resist  the  nomination  to  a  vacancy  thus  created.  We 
thought  it  our  duty  to  oppose  this  proscription  when,  and 
where,  and  as,  we  constitutionally  could.  We  besought  the 
Senate  to  go  with  us,  and  to  take  a  stand  before  the  country  on 
this  great  question.  We  invoked  them  to  try  the  deliberate 
sense  of  the  people  ;  to  trust  themselves  before  the  tribunal  of 
public  opinion  ;  to  resist  at  first,  to  resist  at  last,  to  resist  al- 
ways, the  introduction  of  this  unsocial,  this  mischievous,  this 
dangerous,  this  belligerent  principle,  into  the  practice  of  the 
government. 

Mr.  President,  as  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no  civilized  country 
on  Earth,  in  which,  on  a  change  of  rulers,  there  is  such  an 
inquisition  for  spoil  as  we  have  witnessed  in  this  free  republic. 
The  Inaugural  Address  of  1829  spoke  of  a  *«tr<-hin<t  ojx  rnfln.i  of 
government.  The  most  searching  operation,  Sir,  of  the  present 
administration  has  been  its  search  for  oflice  and  place.  When, 
Sir,  did  any  English  Minister,  Whig  or  Tory,  evor  make  such  an 
inquest?  When  did  he  ever  go  down  to  low-watermark,  to 
make  an  ousting  of  tide-waiters?  When  did  ho  ever  take  away 
the  daily  bread  of  weighers,  and  gangers,  and  measurers?  Or 
when  did  he  go  into  the  villages,  to  disturb  the  little  post-oilices, 
the  mail  contracts,  and  any  thing  else,  in  the  remotest  degree 
connected  with  government?  Sir,  a  British  Minister  who 
should  do  this,  .and  should  afterwards  show  his  head  in  a  Brit- 
ish House  of  Commons,  would  be  received  by  a  universal  hiss. 

I  have  little  to  say  of  the  selections  made  to  fill  vacancies  thus 
created.  It  is  true1,  however, — and  it  is  a  natural  consequence 
of  the  system  which  has  been  acted  on,— that,  within  the  last 
three  years,  more  nominations  have  been  rejected  on  the 
ground  of  unfitncss  than  in  all  the  preceding  forty  years  of  the 
government.  And  these  nominations,  you  know,  Sir,  could  not 
have  been  rejected  but  by  votes  of  the  President's  own  friends. 
The  cases  were  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  Even  party  attach- 
ment could  not  stand  them.  In  some,  not  a  third  of  the  Senate, 
i:i  others  not  ten  votes,  and  in  others  not  a  single  vote,  could  be 
obtained  ;  and  this  for  no  particular  reason  known  only  to  the 
Senate,  but  on  general  grounds  of  the  want  of  character  and 
qualifications  ;  on  grounds  known  to  everybody  else,  as  well  as 
t;»  the  Senate.  All  this,  Sir,  is  perfectly  natural  and  consistent. 
The  same  party  selfishness  which  drives  good  men  out  of  office 
will  push  bad  men  in.  Political  proscription  leads  necessarily 
to  the  filling  of  offices  with  incompetent  persons,  and  to  a  eon- 
sequent  mal-execution  of  official  duties.  And  in  my  opinion, 
Sir,  this  principle  of  claiming  a  monopoly  of  office  by  the  right 
of  conquest,  unless  the  public  shall  effectually  rebuke  and 


FRAUDULENT   PARTY   OUTCRIES.  407 

restrain  it,  will  entirely  change  the  character  of  our  govern- 
ment. It  elevates  party  above  country  ;  it  forgets  the  common 
weal  in  the  pursuit  of  personal  emolument ;  it  tends  to  form,  it 
docs  form,  we  see  that  it  has  formed,  a  political  combination, 
united  by  no  common  principles  or  opinions  among  its  mem- 
bers, either  upon  the  powers  of  the  government  or  the  true 
policy  of  the  country  ;  but  held  together  simply  as  an  associa- 
tion, under  the  charm  of  a  popular  head,  seeking  to  maintain 
possession  of  the  government  by  a  vigorous  exercise  of  its  patron- 
age; and  for  this  purpose  agitating,  and  alarming,  and  distress- 
ing social  life  by  the  exercise  of  a  tyrannical  party  proscription. 
Sir,  if  this  course  of  things  cannot  be  checked,  good  men  will 
grow  tired  of  the  exercise  of  political  privileges.  They  will 
have  nothing  to  do  with  popular  elections.  They  will  see  that 
such  elections  are  but  a  mere  selfish  contest  for  office  ;  and  they 
will  abandon  the  government  to  the  scramble  of  the  bold,  the 
daring,  and  the  desperate. 


FRAUDULENT    PARTY    OUTCRIES.2 

SIR,  there  is  one  other  subject  on  which  I  wish  to  raise  my 
voice.  There  is  a  topic  which  I  perceive  is  to  become  the 
general  war-cry  of  party,  on  which  I  take  the  liberty  to  warn 
the  country  against  delusion.  Sir,  the  cry  is  to  be  raised  that 
this  is  a  question  between  the  poor  and  the  rich.  I  know,  Sir, 
it  has  been  proclaimed,  that  one  thing  was  certain, — that  there 
was  always  a  hatred  on  a  part  of  the  poor  toward  the  rich ;  and 
that  this  hatred  would  support  the  late  measures,  and  the  put- 
ting down  of  the  bank.  Sir,  I  will  not  be  silent  at  the  threat  of 
such  a  detestable  fraud  on  public  opinion.  If  but  ten  men,  or 
one  man,  in  the  nation  will  hear  my  voice,  I  will  still  warn  them 
against  this  attempted  imposition. 

Mr.  President,  this  is  an  eventful  moment.    On  the  great 

2  From  a  speech  made  in  the  Senate,  January  31, 1834.  At  that  time,  as  Web- 
Fter  had  rlearly  foreseen  and  predicted,  the  Presidential  war  against  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  had  occasioned  a  total  derangement  of  the  finances  of  the 
country,  and  brought  on  a  crisis  of  unexampled  depression  and  distress  in  busi- 
!ri  rniiM'qurnce  of  this,  Congress  was  flooded  with  memorials  from  all 
parts  of  the  country,  disapproving  the  course  of  the  government,  and  imploring 
measures  of  relief.  In  order  to  tide  themselves  over  the  crisis,  the  partisans 
of  the  administration,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress,  fell  upon  a  course  of  invid- 
ioii.-,  and  inflammatory  appeals  to  popular  passion  and  prejudice.  The  severe 
rebuke  administered  by  Webster  was  well  deserved,  and  it  is,  I  think,  his  high. 
cat  strain  of  what  may  be  termed  angry  eloquence. 


408  WEBSTER. 

questions  which  occupy  us,  we  all  look  for  some  decisive  move- 
ment of  public  opinion.  As  I  wish  that  movement  to  be  free, 
intelligent,  and  unbiased,  the  true  manifestation  of  the  public 
will,  I  desire  to  prepare  the  country  for  another  appeal,  which 
I  perceive  is  about  to  be  made  to  popular  prejudice,  another 
attempt  to  obscure  all  distinct  views  of  the  public  good,  to  over- 
whelm all  patriotism  and  all  enlightened  self-interest,  by  loud 
cries  against  false  danger,  and  by  exciting  the  passions  of  one 
class  against  another.  I  am  not  mistaken  in  the  omen;  I  see  tho 
magazine  whence  the  weapons  of  this  warfare  are  to  be  drawn. 
I  already  hear  the  din  of  the  hammering  of  arms  preparatory  to 
the  combat.  They  may  be  such  arms,  perhaps,  as  reason  and 
justice  and  honest  patriotism  cannot  resist.  Every  effort  at 
resistance,  it  is  possible,  may  be  feeble  and  powerless  ;  but,  for 
one,  I  shall  make  an  effort, —  an  effort  to  be  begun  now,  and  to 
be  carried  on  and  continued,  with  untiring  zeal,  till  the  end  of 
the  contest  comes. 

Sir,  I  see,  in  those  vehicles  which  carry  to  the  people  senti- 
ments from  high  places,  plain  declarations  that  the  present  con- 
troversy is  but  a  strife  between  one  part  of  the  community  and 
another.  I  hear  it  boasted  as  the  unfailing  security,  the  solid 
ground,  never  to  be  shaken,  on  which  recent  measures  rest,  that 
the  poor  naturally  hate  the  rich.  I  know  that,  under  the  cover  of 
the  roofs  of  the  Capitol,  within  the  last  twenty-four  hours, 
among  men  sent  here  to  devise  means  for  the  public  safety  and 
the  public  good,  it  has  been  vaunted  forth,  as  matter  of  boast 
and  triumph,  that  one  cause  existed  powerful  enough  to  sup- 
port every  thing,  and  to  defend  every  thing  ;  and  that  was,  the 
natural  hatred  of  the  poor  to  the  rich. 

Sir,  I  pronounce  the  author  of  .such  sentiments  to  be  guilty  of 
attempting  a  detestable  fraud  on  the  community;  a  double 
fraud  ;  a  fraud  which  is  to  cheat  men  out  of  their  property  and 
out  of  the  earnings  of  their  labour,  by  first  cheating  them  out 
of  their  understandings. 

"The  natural  hatred  of  the  poor  to  the  rich!"  Sir,  it  shall 
not  be  till  the  last  moment  of  my  existence,— it  shall  be  only 
when  I  am  drawn  to  the  verge  of  oblivion,  when  I  shall  cense  to 
have  respect  or  affection  for  anything  on  earth,  — that  I  will 
believe  the  people  of  the  United  States  capable  of  being  effect- 
ually deluded,  cajoled,  and  driven  about  in  herds,  by  such  abomi- 
nable frauds  as  this.  If  they  shall  sink  to  that  point;  if  they 
so  far  cease  to  be  men,  thinking  men,  intelligent  men,  as  to 
yield  to  such  pretences  and  such  clamour, —  they  will  be  slaves 
already ;  slaves  to  their  own  passions,  slaves  to  the  fraud  and 
knavery  of  pretended  friends.  They  will  deserve  to  be  blotted 
out  of  all  the  records  of  freedom  ;  they  ought  not  to  dishonour 


FRAUDULENT   PARTY   OUTCRIES.  409 

the  cause  of  self-government,  by  attempting  any  longer  to  exer- 
cise it ;  they  ought  to  keep  their  unworthy  hands  entirely  off 
from  the  cause  of  republican  liberty,  if  they  are  capable  of 
being  the  victims  of  artifices  so  shallow,  of  tricks  so  stale,  so 
threadbare,  so  often  practised,  so  much  worn  out,  on  serfs  and 
slaves. 

"The  natural  hatred  of  the  poor  against  the  rich!"  "The 
danger  of  a  moneyed  aristocracy!"  "A  power  as  great  and 
dangerous  as  that  resisted  by  the  Revolution!"  "A  call  to  a 
new  Declaration  of  Independence!"  Sir,  I  admonish  the  peo- 
ple against  the  objects  of  outcries  like  these.  I  admonish  every 
industrious  labourer  in  the  country  to  be  on  his  guard  against 
such  delusion.  I  tell  him  the  attempt  is  to  play  off  his  passions 
against  his  interests,  and  to  prevail  on  him,  in  the  name  of  lib- 
erty, to  destroy  all  the  fruits  of  liberty ;  in  the  name  of  patriot- 
ism, to  injure  and  afflict  his  country ;  and,  in  the  name  of  his 
own  independence,  to  destroy  that  very  independence,  and 
make  him  a  beggar  and  a  slave.  Has  he  a  dollar?  He  is  ad- 
vised to  do  that  which  will  destroy  half  its  value.  Has  he 
hands  to  labour?  Let  him  rather  fold  them,  and  sit  still,  than 
be  pushed  on,  by  fraud  and  artifice,  to  support  measures  which 
will  render  his  labour  useless  and  hopeless. 

Sir,  the  very  man,  of  all  others,  who  has  the  deepest  interest 
in  a  sound  currency,  and  who  suffers  most  by  mischievous  legis- 
lation in  money  matters,  is  the  man  who  earns  his  daily  bread 
by  his  daily  toil.  A  depreciated  currency,  sudden  changes  of 
prices,  paper  money  falling  between  morning  and  noon,  and 
falling  still  lower  between  noon  and  night,— these  things  con- 
stitute the  very  harvest-time  of  speculators,  and  of  the  whole 
race  of  those  who  are  at  once  idle  and  crafty  ;  and  of  that  ether 
race,  too,  the  Catilines  of  all  times,  marked,  so  as  to  be  known 
for  ever  by  one  stroke  of  the  historian's  pen,  those  greedy  of  other 
metis  property  and  prodigal  of  their  own.  Capitalists,  too,  may 
outlive  such  times.  They  may  either  prey  on  the  earnings  of 
labour,  by  their  cent,  per  cent.,  or  they  may  hoard.  But  the 
labouring  man,  what  can  he  hoard?  Preying  on  nobody,  he 
heroines  the  prey  of  all.  His  property  is  in  his  hands.  His  re- 
liance, his  fund,  his  productive  freehold,  his  all,  is  his  labour. 
Whether  ho  work  on  his  own  small  capital  or  another's,  his  liv- 
ing i.s  still  earned  by  his  industry  ;  and  when  the  money  of  the 
country  becomes  depreciated  and  debased,  whether  it  be  adul- 
terated coin  or  paper  without  credit,  that  industry  is  robbed  of 
its  reward.  He  then  labours  for  a  country  whose  laws  cheat 
him  out  of  his  bread.  I  would  say  to  every  owner  of  every 
quarter  section  of  land  in  the  West,  I  would  say  to  every  man 
in  the  East  who  follows  his  own  plough,  and  to  every  mechanic, 


410  WEBSTER. 

artisan,  and  labourer,  in  every  city  in  the  country,  — I  would 
say  to  every  man,  everywhere,  who  wishes,  by  honest  means, 
to  gain  an  honest  living,  "Beware  of  wolves  in  sheep's  clothing! 
Whoever  attempts,  under  whatever  popular  cry,  to  shake  the 
stability  of  the  public  currency,  bring  on  distress  in  money  mat- 
ters, and  drive  the  country  into  paper  money,  stabs  your  inter- 
est, and  your  happiness  to  the  heart." 

The  herd  of  hungry  wolves  who  live  on  other  men's  earnings 
will  rejoice  in  such  a  state  of  things.  A  system  which  absorbs 
into  their  pockets  the  fruits  of  other  men's  industry  is  the  very 
system  for  them.  A  government  that  produces  or  countenances 
uncertainty,  fluctuations,  violent  risings  and  fallings  in  prices, 
and,  finally,  paper  money,  is  a  government  exactly  after  their 
own  heart.  Hence  these  men  arc  always  for  change.  They 
will  never  let  well  enough  alone.  A  condition  of  public  affairs 
in  which  property  is  safe,  industry  certain  of  its  reward,  and 
every  man  secure  in  his  own  hard-earned  gains  is  no  paradise 
for  them.  Give  them  just  the  reverse  of  this  state  of  things  ; 
bring  on  change,  and  change  after  change  ;  let  it  not  be  known 
to-day  what  will  be  the  value  of  property  to-morrow ;  let  no 
man  be  able  to  say  whether  the  money  in  his  pockets  at  night 
will  be  money  or  worthless  rags  in  the  morning;  and  depivss 
labour  till  double  work  shall  earn  but  half  a  living,  — give  them 
this  state  of  things,  and  you  give  them  the  consummation  of 
their  earthly  bliss. 

Sir,  the  great  interest  of  this  country,  the  producing  cause  of 
all  its  prosperity,  is  labourl  labour!  labourl  We  are  a  labour- 
ing community.  A  vast  majority  of  us  all  live  by  industry  and 
actual  occupation  in  some  of  their  forms.  The  Constitution  was 
made  to  protect  this  industry,  to  give  it  both  encouragement 
and  security;  but,  above  all,  security.  To  that  very  end,  and 
with  that  precise  object  in  view,  power  was  given  to  Congress 
over  the  currency,  and  over  the  money  system  of  the  country. 
In  forty  years'  experience,  we  have  found  nothing  at  all  ade- 
quate to  the  beneficial  execution  of  this  trust  but  a  well-con- 
ducted national  bank.  That  has  been  tried,  returned  to,  tried 
again,  and  always  found  successful.  If  it  be  not  the  proper 
thing  for  us,  let  it  be  soberly  argued  against ;  let  something  bet- 
ter be  proposed;  let  the  country  examine  the  matter  coolly, 
and  decide  for  itself.  But  whoever  shall  attempt  to  carry  a 
question  of  this  kind  by  clamour  and  violence  and  prejudice; 
whoever  would  rouse  the  people  by  appeals,  false  and  fraudu- 
lent appeals,  to  their  love  of  independence,  to  resist  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  useful  institution,  because  it  is  a  bank,  and  deals 
in  money,  and  who  artfully  urges  these  appeals  Avherever  ho 
thinks  there  is  more  of  honest  feeling  than  of  enlightened  judg- 


THE   POSITION  OF  MR.   CALHOUN.  411 

ment,— means  nothing  but  deception.  And  whoever  has  the 
•wickedness  to  conceive,  and  the  hardihood  to  avow,  a  purpose 
to  break  down  what  has  been  found,  in  forty  years'  experience, 
essential  to  the  protection  of  all  interests,  by  arraying  one  class 
against  another,  and  by  acting  on  such  a  principle  as  that  the 
poor  always  hate  the  rich,  shows  himself  the  reckless  enemy  of 
all.  An  enemy  to  his  whole  country,  to  all  classes,  and  to  every 
man  in  it,  he  deserves  to  be  marked  especially  as  the  poor  man's 
curse! 


THE  POSITION  OF  MR,  CALHOUN.8 

MR.  PRESIDENT:  The  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  lias 
admonished  us  to  be  mindful  of  the  opinions  of  those  who  shall 
come  after  us.  We  must  take  our  chance,  Sir,  as  to  the  light  in 
which  posterity  will  regard  us.  I  do  not  decline  its  judgment, 
nor  withhold  myself  from  its  scrutiny.  Feeling  that  I  am  per- 
forming my  public  duty  with  singleness  of  heart  and  to  the  best 
of  my  ability,  I  fearlessly  trust  myself  to  the  country,  now  and 
hereafter,  and  leave  both  my  motives  and  my  character  to  its 
decision. 

Tlu<  gentleman  has  terminated  his  speech  in  atone  of  threat 
and  defiance  towards  this  bill,  even  should  it  become  a  law  of 
the  land,  altogether  unusual  in  the  halls  of  Congress.  But  I 
shall  not  suffer  myself  to  be  excited  into  warmth  by  his  denun- 
ciation of  the  measure  which  I  support.  Among  the  feelings 
which  at  this  moment  fill  my  breast,  not  the  least  is  that  of 
regret  at  the  position  in  which  the  gentleman  has  placed  him- 
self. Sir,  he  does  himself  no  justice.  The  cause  which  he  has 
espoused  finds  no  basis  in  the  Constitution,  no  succour  from 

3  This  short  piece  and  the  one  next  following  are  from  a  speech  in  the  Sen- 
ate, February  1(5,  IS*}.  The  proper  title  of  the  speech  is,  "The  Constitution  not 
a  Compact  between  Sovereign  States."  In  November,  1832,  the  people  of  South 
Carolina  had  met,  by  their  delegates,  in  convention,  and  settled  the  principles 
uincc  tcj  the  National  government.  Pursuant  to  an  ordinance  adopted 
by  that  body,  the  legislature  of  the  State  had,  afterwards,  passed  laws  organiz- 
i  resistance,  especially  in  the  matter  of  the  tariff.  President  Jackson, 
•whatever  errors  of  policy  he  had  fallen  into  touching  other  questions,  was  just 
the  man  for  that  business;  and  his  motto  then  was,  "The  UNION, —  it  must  bo 
preserved."  lie  called  upon  Congress  for  such  further  legislation  as  would  en. 
able  him  to  meet  the  exigency.  In  response  to  this  call,  a  bill  was  introduced, 
"further  to  provide  for  the  Collection  of  Duties  on  Imports,"  commonly  called 
"  the  Force  Hill."  Calhoun  opposed  the  bill  in  one  of  his  ablest  speeches,  bring, 
ing  his  whole  armament  of  nullification  philosophy  to  bear  against  it.  Webster's 
speech  was  in  reply  to  Calhouu,  and  in  support  of  the  bill. 


4-12  WEBSTER. 

public  sympathy,  no  cheering  from  a  patriotic  community.  He 
has  no  foothold  on  which  to  stand  while  he  might  display  the 
powers  of  his  acknowledged  talents.  Every  thing  beneath  his 
feet  is  hollow  and  treacherous.  He  is  like  a  strong  man  strug- 
gling in  a  morass:  every  effort  to  extricate  himself  only  sinks 
him  deeper  and  deeper.  And  I  fear  the  resemblance  may  be 
carried  still  further  ;  I  fear  that  no  friend  can  safely  come  to 
his  relief,  that  no  one  can  approach  near  enough  to  hold  out  a 
helping  hand,  without  danger  of  going  down  himself,  also,  into 
the  bottomless  depths  of  this  Serbonian  bog. 

The  honourable  gentleman  has  declared  that  on  the  decision 
of  the  question  now  in  debate  may  depend  the  cause  of  liberty 
itself.  I  am  of  the  same  opinion  ;  but  then,  Sir,  the  liberty 
which  I  think  is  staked  on  the  contest  is  not  political  liberty, 
in  any  general  and  undefined  character,  but  our  own  well- 
understood  and  long-enjoyed  American  liberty. 

Sir,  1  love  Liberty  no  less  ardently  than  the  gentleman  him- 
self, in  whatever  form  she  may  have  appeared  in  the  progress 
of  human  history.  As  exhibited  in  the  master  States  of  antiq- 
uity, as  breaking  out  again  from  amidst  the  darkness  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  beaming  on  the  formation  of  in-w  communi- 
ties in  modern  Europe,  she  has,  always  and  everywhere,  charms 
for  me.  Yet,  Sir,  it  is  our  own  liberty,  guarded  by  constitutions 
and  secured  by  union,  it  is  that  liberty  which  is  our  paternal 
inheritance,  it  is  our  established,  dear-bought,  peculiar  Ameri- 
can liberty,  to  which  I  am  chiefly  devoted,  and  the  cause  of 
which  I  now  mean,  to  the  utmost  of  my  power,  to  maintain 
and  defend. 


SOUTH  CAROLINA  NULLIFICATION. 

SIR,  those  who  espouse  the  doctrines  of  nullification  reject,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  the  first  great  principle  of  all  republican  lib- 
erty ;  that  is,  that  the  majority  must  govern.  In  matters  of 
common  concern,  the  judgment  of  a  majority  must  stand  as  the 
judgment  of  the  whole.  This  is  a  law  imposed  on  us  by  the 
absolute  necessity  of  the  case  ;  and  if  we  do  not  act  upon  it, 
there  is  no  possibility  of  maintaining  any  government  but 
despotism.  We  hear  loud  and  repeated  denunciations  against 
what  is  called  majority  government.  It  is  declared,  with  much 
warmth,  that  a  majority  government  cannot  be  maintained  in 
the  United  States.  What,  then,  do  gentlemen  wish?  Do  they 
wish  to  establish  a  minority  government?  Do  they  wish  to 
subject  the  will  of  the  many  to  the  will  of  the  few?  The  lion- 


SOUTH   CAROLINA   NULLIFICATION.  413 

curable  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  has  spoken  of  absolute 
majorities  and  majorities  concurrent;  language  wholly  un- 
known to  our  Constitution,  and  to  which  it  is  not  easy  to  affix 
definite  ideas.  As  far  as  I  understand  it,  it  would  teach  xis 
that  the  absolute  majority  may  be  found  in  Congress,  but  the 
majority  concurrent  must  be  looked  for  in  the  States ;  that  is 
to  say,  Sir,  stripping  the  matter  of  this  novelty  of  phrase,  that 
the  dissent  of  one  or  more  States,  as  States,  renders  void  the 
decision  of  a  majority  of  Congress,  so  far  as  that  State  is  con- 
cerned. And  so  this  doctrine,  running  but  a  short  career,  like 
other  dogmas  of  the  day,  terminates  in  nullification. 

If  this  vehement  invective  against  majorities  meant  no  more 
than  that,  in  the  construction  of  government,  it  is  wise  to 
provide  checks  and  balances,  so  that  there  should  be  various 
limitations  on  the  power  of  the  mere  majority,  it  would  only 
mean  what  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  has  already 
abundantly  provided.  It  is  full  of  such  checks  and  balances. 
In  its  very  organization,  it  adopts  a  broad  and  most  effectual 
principle  in  restraint  of  the  power  of  mere  majorities.  A 
majority  of  the  people  elects  the  House  of  representatives,  but 
it  does  not  elect  the  Senate.  The  Senate  is  elected  by  the 
States,  each  State  having,  in  this  respect,  an  equal  power.  No 
law,  therefore,  can  pass,  without  the  assent  of  a  majority  of 
the  representatives  of  the  people,  and  a  majority  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  States  also.  A  majority  of  the  representa- 
tives of  the  people  and  a  majority  of  the  States  must  concur,  in 
every  Act  of  Congress  ;  and  the  President  is  elected  on  a  plan 
compounded  of  both  these  principles.  But,  having  composed 
one  House  of  representatives  chosen  by  the  people  in  each 
State,  according  to  its  numbers,  and  the  other,  of  an  equal 
number  of  members  from  every  State,  whether  larger  or 
smaller,  the  Constitution  gives  to  majorities  in  these  Houses, 
thus  constituted,  the  full  and  entire  power  of  passing  laws, 
subject  always  to  the  constitutional  restrictions,  and  to  the 
approval  of  the  President.  To  subject  them  to  any  other 
power  is  clear  usurpation.  The  majority  of  one  House  may  be 
controlled  by  the  majority  of  the  other  ;  and  both  may  be 
restrained  by  the  President's  negative.  These  are  checks  and 
balance*  provided  by  the  Constitution,  existing  in  the  govern- 
ment itself,  and  wisely  intended  to  secure  deliberation  and 
caution  in  legislative  proceedings.  But  to  resist  the  will  of  the 
majority  in  both  Houses,  thus  constitutionally  exercised  ;  to 
insist  on  the  lawfulness  of  interposition  by  an  extraneous 
power ;  to  claim  the  right  of  defeating  the  will  of  Congress,  by 
setting  up  against  it  the  will  of  a  single  State,— is  neither  more 
nor  less,  as  it  strikes  me,  than  a  plain  attempt  to  overthrow  tho 


414  WEBSTER. 

government.  The  constituted  authorities  of  the  United  States 
are  no  longer  a  government,  if  they  be  not  masters  of  their  own 
will ;  they  are  no  longer  a  government,  if  an  external  power 
may  arrest  their  proceedings ;  they  are  no  longer  a  govern- 
ment, if  Acts  passed  by  both  Houses,  and  approved  by  the 
President,  may  be  nullified  by  State  vetoes  or  State  ordinances. 
Does  any  one  suppose  it  could  make  any  difference,  as  to  the 
binding  authority  of  an  Act  of  Congress,  and  of  the  duty  of  a 
State  to  respect  it,  whether  it  passed  by  a  mere  majority  of 
both  Houses,  or  by  three  fourths  of  each,  or  the  unanimous 
vote  of  each?  Within  the  limits  and  restrictions  of  the  Consti- 
tution, the  government  of  the  United  States,  like  all  other  pop- 
ular governments,  acts  by  majorities.  It  can  act  no  otherwise. 
"\Vhoever,  therefore,  denounces  the  government  of  majorities, 
denounces  the  government  of  his  own  country,  and  denounces 
all  free  governments.  And  whoever  would  restrain  these 
majorities,  while  acting  within  their  constitutional  limits,  by  an 
external  power,  whatever  he  may  intend,  asserts  principles 
which,  if  adopted,  can  lead  to  nothing  else  than  the  destruction 
of  the  government  itself. 

Does  not  the  gentleman  perceive,  Sir,  how  his  argument 
against  majorities  might  here  be  retorted  upon  him?  Does  he 
not  see  how  cogently  he  might  be  asked,  whether  it  be  the 
character  of  nullification  to  practise  what  it  preaches  ?  Look  to 
South  Carolina,  at  the  present  moment.  How  far  are  the  rights 
of  minorities  there  respected  ?  I  confess,  Sir,  I  have  not  known, 
in  peaceable  times,  the  power  of  the  majority  carried  with  a 
higher  hand,  or  upheld  with  more  relentless  disregard  of  the 
rights,  feelings,  and  principles  of  the  minority; — a  minority 
embracing,  as  the  gentleman  himself  will  admit,  a  large  portion 
of  the  worth  and  respectability  of  the  State  ;  a  minority  com- 
prehending in  its  numbers  men  who  have  been  associated  with 
him,  and  with  us,  in  these  halls  of  legislation ;  men  who  have 
served  their  country  at  home  and  honoured  it  abroad ;  men 
who  would  cheerfully  lay  down  their  lives  for  their  native 
State,  in  any  cause  which  they  could  regard  as  the  cause  of 
honour  and  duty  ;  men  above  fear,  and  above  reproach  ;  whose 
deepest  grief  and  distress  spring  from  the  conviction,  that  the 
present  proceedings  of  the  State  must  ultimately  reflect  dis- 
credit upon  her.  How  is  this  minority,  how  are  these  men,  re- 
garded? They  are  enthralled  and  disfranchised  by  ordinal: 
and  Acts  of  legislation  ;  subjected  to  tests  and  oaths  incompat- 
ible, as  they  conscientiously  think,  with  oaths  already  taken, 
and  obligations  already  assumed  :  they  arc  proscribed  and  de- 
nounced, as  recreants  to  duty  and  patriotism,  and  slaves  to  a 
foreign  power.  Both  the  spirit  which  pursues  them,  and  the 


SOUTH    CAROLINA  NULLIFICATION.  415 

positive  measures  which  emanate  from  that  spirit,  are  harsh 
and  proscriptive,  beyond  all  precedent  within  my  knowledge, 
except  in  periods  of  professed  revolution. 

It  is  not,  Sir,  one  would  think,  for  those  who  approve  these 
proceedings  to  complain  of  the  power  of  majorities. 

Nullification,  Sir,  is  as  distinctly  revolutionary  as  secession ; 
but  I  cannot  say  that  the  revolution  which  it  seeks  is  one  of  so 
respectable  a  character.  Secession  would,  it  is  true,  abandon 
the  Constitution  altogether  ;  but  then  it  would  profess  to  aban- 
don it.  Whatever  other  inconsistencies  it  might  run  into,  one, 
at  least,  it  would  avoid.  It  would  not  belong  to  a  government, 
while  it  rejected  its  authority.  It  would  not  repel  the  burden, 
and  continue  to  enjoy  the  benefits.  It  would  not  aid  in  passing 
laws  which  others  are  to  obey,  and  yet  reject  their  authority 
as  to  itself.  It  would  not  undertake  to  reconcile  obedience 
to  public  authority  with  an  asserted  right  of  command  over 
that  same  authority.  It  would  not  be  in  the  government, 
and  above  the  government,  at  the  same  time.  But  though 
secession  may  be  a  more  respectable  mode  of  attaining  the  ob- 
ject than  nullification,  it  is  not  more  truly  revolutionary.  Each, 
and  both,  resist  the  constitutional  authorities ;  each,  and  both, 
would  sever  the  Union,  and  subvert  the  government. 

Mr.  President,  I  will  not  now  examine,  at  length,  the  ordi- 
nance and  laws  of  South  Carolina.  These  papers  arc  well  drawn 
for  their  purpose.  Their  authors  understood  their  own  objects. 
They  arc  called  a  peaceable  remedj^fHKl  w_e.  have  been  told  that 
South  Carolina,  after  all,  intends  nothing  but  a  lawsuit.  A 
very  few  words,  Sir,  will  show  the  nature  of  this  peaceable 
remedy,  and  of  the  lawsuit  which  South  Carolina  contemplates. 

In  the  first  place,  the  ordinance  declares  the  law  of  last  July, 
and  all  other  laws  of  the  United  States  laying  duties,  to  be  ab- 
solutely null  and  void,  and  makes  it  unlawful  for  the  consti- 
tuted authorities  of  the  United  States  to  enforce  the  payment 
of  such  duties.  It  is  therefore,  Sir,  an  indictable  offence,  at 
this  moment,  in  South  Carolina,  for  any  person  to  be  concerned 
in  collecting  revenue  under  the  laws  of  the  United  States.  It 
being  declared,  by  what  is  considered  a  fundamental  law  of  the 
State,  unlawful  to  collect  these  duties,  an  indictment  lies,  of 
course,  against  any  one  concerned  in  such  collection  ;  and  he  is, 
iieral  principles,  liable  to  be  punished  by  fine  and  impris- 
onment. The  terms,  it  is  true,  are,  that  it  is  unlawful  "to 
enforce  the  payment  of  duties";  but  every  custom-house  offi- 
cer enforces  payment  while  he  detains  the  goods  in  order  to 
obtain  such  payment.  The  ordinance,  therefore,  reaches  every- 
body concerned  in  the  collection  of  the  duties. 


416  WEBSTER. 

This  is  the  first  step  in  the  prosecution  of  the  peaceable 
remedy.  The  second  is  more  decisive.  By  the  Act  commonly 
called  the  replevin  law,  any  person,  whose  goods  are  seized  or 
detained  by  the  collector  for  the  payment  of  duties,  may  sue 
out  a  writ  of  replevin,  and,  by  virtue  of  that  writ,  the  goods  are 
to  be  restored  to  him.  A  writ  of  replevin  is  a  writ  which  the 
sheriff  is  bound  to  execute,  and  for  the  execution  of  which  he  is 
bound  to  employ  force,  if  necessary.  lie  may  call  out  the  posse, 
and  must  do  so,  if  resistance  be  made.  This  posse  may  bo  tinned 
or  unarmed.  It  may  come  forth  with  military  array,  and  under 
the  lead  of  military  men.  "Whatever  number  of  troops  may  be 
assembled  in  Charleston,  they  may  be  summoned,  with  the 
governor,  or  cominander-in-chiof,  at  their  head,  to  come  in  aid 
of  the  sheriff.  It  is  evident,  then,  Sir,  that  the  whole  military 
power  of  the  State  is  to  be  employed,  whenever  necessary,  in 
dispossessing  the  custom-house  ollicers,  and  in  seizing  and 
holding  the  goods,  without  paying  the  duties.  This  is  the  sec- 
ond step  in  the  peaceable  remedy. 

Sir,  whatever  pretences  may  be  set  up  to  the  contrary,  this  is 
the  direct  application  of  force,  and  of  military  force.  It  is  un- 
lawful, in  itself,  to  replevy  goods  in  the  custody  of  the  collect- 
ors. But  this  unlawful  act  is  to  be  done,  and  it  is  to  be  done  by 
power.  Here  is  a  plain  interposition,  by  physical  force,  to 
resist  the  laws  of  the  Union.  The  legal  mode  of  collecting 
duties  is  to  detain  the  goods  till  such  duties  are  paid  or  secured. 
But  force  comes,  and  overpowers  the  collector  and  his  assist- 
ants, and  takes  away  the  goods,  leaving  the  duties  unpaid. 
There  cannot  be  a  clearer  case  of  forcible  resistance  to  law. 
And  it  is  provided  that  the  goods  thus  seized  shall  be  held 
against  any  attempt  to  retake  them,  by  the  same  force  which 
seized  them. 

Having  thus  dispossessed  the  officers  of  the  government  of 
the  goods,  without  payment  of  duties,  and  seized  and  secured 
them  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  State,  only  one  thing  more  re- 
mains to  be  done,  and  that  is,  to  cut  off  all  possibility  of  legal 
redress  ;  and  that,  too,  is  accomplished,  or  thought  to  be  accom- 
plished. The  ordinance  declares  that  all  judicial  proceedings, 
founded  on  the  revenue  laics,  (including,  of  course,  proceedings  in 
the  courts  of  the  United  States,)  shall  be  null  and  void.  This 
nullifies  the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States.  Then  comes 
the  test-oath  Act.  This  requires  all  State  judges  and  jurors  in 
the  State  courts  to  swear  that  they  will  execute  the  ordinance, 
and  all  Acts  of  the  legislature  passed  in  pursuance  thereof. 
The  ordinance  declares  that  no  appeal  shall  be  allowed  from 
the  decision  of  the  State  courts  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States ;  and  the  replevin  Act  makes  it  an  indictable 


SOUTH    CAROLINA   NULLIFICATION.  417 

offence  for  any  clerk  to  furnish  a  copy  of  the  record,  for  the 
purpose  of  such  appeal. 

The  two  principal  provisions  on  which  South  Carolina  relies, 
to  resist  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  nullify  the  authority 
of  this  government,  are,  therefore,  these : 

1.  A  forcible  seizure  of  goods,  before  duties  are  paid  or  se- 
cured, by  the  power  of  the  State,  civil  and  military. 

2.  The  taking  away,  by  the  most  effectual  means  in  her  power, 
of  all  legal  redress  in  the  courts  of  the  United  States  ;  the  con- 
fining of  judicial  proceedings  to  her  own  State  tribunals ;  and 
the  compelling  of  her  judges  and  jurors  of  these  her  own  courts 
to  take  an  oath,  beforehand,  that  they  will  decide  all  cases 
according  to  the  ordinance,  and  the  Acts  passed  under  it ;  that 
is,  that  they  will  decide  the  cause  one  way.    They  do  not  swear 
to  try  it,  on  its  own  merits  ;  they  only  swear  to  decide  it  as  nulli- 
fication requires. 

The  character,  Sir,  of  these  provisions  defies  comment.  Their 
object  is  as  plain  as  their  means  are  extraordinary.  They  pro- 
pose direct  resistance,  by  the  whole  power  of  the  State,  to  laws 
of  Congress,  and  cut  off,  by  methods  deemed  adequate,  any 
redress  by  legal  and  judicial  authority.  They  arrest  legislation, 
defy  the  executive,  and  banish  the  judicial  power  of  this  gov- 
ernment. They  authorize  and  command  acts  to  be  done,  and 
done  by  force,  both  of  numbers  and  of  arms,  which,  if  done, 
and  done  by  force,  are  clearly  acts  of  rebellion  and  treason. 

Such,  Sir,  are  the  laws  of  South  Carolina ;  such,  Sir,  is  the 
peaceable  remedy  of  nullification.  Has  not  nullification  reached, 
even  thus  early,  that  point  of  direct  and  forcible  resistance  to 
law  to  which  I  intimated,  three  years  ago,  it  plainly  tended  ? 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  what  is  the  reason  for  passing  laws 
like  these?  What  are  the  oppressions  experienced  under  the 
Union,  calling  for  measures  which  thus  threaten  to  sever  and 
destroy  it?  What  invasion  of  public  liberty,  what  ruin  to 
private  happiness,  what  long  list  of  rights  violated,  or  wrongs 
in i redressed,  is  to  justify  to  the  country,  to  posterity,  and  to 
the  world,  this  assault  upon  the  free  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  this  great  and  glorious  work  of  our  fathers  ?  At  this 
very  moment,  Sir,  the  whole  land  smiles  in  peace,  and  rejoices 
in  plenty.  A  general  and  a  high  prosperity  pervades  the  coun- 
try ;  and,  judging  by  the  common  standard,  by  increase  of  popu- 
lation and  wealth,  or  judging  by  the  opinions  of  that  portion  of 
her  people  not  embarked  in  these  dangerous  and  desperate 
measures,  this  prosperity  overspreads  South  Carolina  herself. 

Thus  happy  at  home,  our  country,  at  the  same  time,  holds 
high  the  character  of  her  institutions,  her  power,  her  rapid 
growth,  and  her  future  destiny,  in  the  eyes  of  all  foreign  States. 


418  WEBSTER. 

One  danger  only  creates  hesitation ;  one  doubt  only  exists,  to 
darken  the  otherwise  unclouded  brightness  of  that  aspect 
which  she  exhibits  to  the  view  and  to  the  admiration  of  the 
world.  Need  I  say,  that  that  doubt  respects  the  permanency  of 
our  Union  ?  and  need  I  say,  that  that  doubt  is  now  caused, 
more  than  by  any  thing  else,  by  these  very  proceedings  of 
South  Carolina?  Sir,  all  Europe  is  at  this  moment  beholding 
us,  and  looking  for  the  issue  of  this  controversy ;  those  who 
hate  free  institutions,  with  malignant  hope ;  those  who  love 
them,  with  deep  anxiety  and  shivering  fear. 

The  cause,  then,  Sir,  the  cause  1  Let  the  world  know  the 
cause  which  has  thus  induced  one  State  of  the  Union  to  bid  de- 
fiance to  the  power  of  the  whole,  and  openly  to  talk  of  secession. 
Sir,  the  world  will  scarcely  believe  that  this  whole  controversy, 
and  all  the  desperate  measures  which  its  support  requires,  have 
no  other  foundation  than  a  difference  of  opinion  upon  a  pro- 
vision of  the  Constitution,  between  a  majority  of  the  people  of 
South  Carolina,  on  one  side,  and  a  vast  majority  of  the  whole 
people  of  the  United  States,  on  the  other.  It  will  not  credit  the 
fact,  it  will  not  admit  the  possibility,  that,  in  an  enlightened 
age,  in  a  free,  popular  republic,  under  a  Constitution  where  the 
people  govern,  as  they  must  always  govern,  under  such  systems, 
by  majorities,  at  a  time  of  unprecedented  happiness,  without 
practical  oppression,  without  evils  such  as  may  not  only  be  pre- 
tended, but  felt  and  experienced, —  evils  not  slight  or  tempo- 
rary, but  deep,  permanent,  and  intolerable, — a  single  State 
should  rush  into  conflict  with  all  the  rest,  attempt  to  put  down 
the  power  of  the  Union  by  her  own  laws,  and  to  support  those 
laws  by  her  military  power,  and  thus  break  up  and  destroy  the 
world's  last  hope.  And  well  the  world  may  be  incredulous. 
We,  who  see  and  hear  it,  can  ourselves  hardly  yet  believe  it. 
Even  after  all  that  had  preceded  it,  this  ordinance  struck  the 
country  with  amazement.  It  was  incredible  and  inconceivable 
that  South  Carolina  should  thus  plunge  headlong  into  resistance 
to  the  laws  on  a  matter  of  opinion,  and  on  a  question  in  which 
the  preponderance  of  opinion,  both  of  the  present  day  and  of 
all  past  time,  was  so  overwhelmingly  against  her.  The  ordi- 
nance declares  that  Congress  has  exceeded  its  just  power  by 
laying  duties  on  imports  intended  for  the  protection  of  manu- 
factures. This  is  the  opinion  of  South  Carolina ;  and  on  the 
strength  of  this  opinion  she  nullifies  the  laws.  Yet  has  the  rest 
of  the  country  no  right  to  its  opinion  also?  Is  one  State  t<»  >it 
sole  arbitress?  She  maintains  that  those  laws  are  plain,  delib- 
erate, and  palpable  violations  of  the  Constitution  ;  that  she  has 
a  sovereign  right  to  decide  this  matter ;  and  that,  having  so  de- 
cided, she  is  authorized  to  resist  their  execution  by  her  owu 


SOUTH   CAROLINA   NULLIFICATION".  419 

sovereign  power  ;  and  she  declares  that  she  will  resist  it,  though 
such  resistance  should  shatter  the  Union  into  atoms. 

Mr.  President,  I  do  not  intend  to  discuss  the  propriety  of 
these  laws  at  large ;  but  I  will  ask,  How  are  they  shown  to  be 
thus  plainly  and  palpably  unconstitutional?  Have  they  no 
countenance  at  all  in  the  Constitution  itself  ?  Are  they  quite 
new  in  the  history  .of  the  government  ?  Are  they  a  sudden  and 
violent  usurpation  on  the  rights  of  the  States?  Sir,  what  will 
the  civilized  world  say,  what  will  posterity  say,  when  they  learn 
that  similar  laws  have  existed  from  the  very  foundation  of  the 
government ;  that  for  thirty  years  the  power  was  never  ques- 
tioned ;  and  that  no  State  in  the  Union  has  more  freely  and  un- 
equivocally admitted  it  than  South  Carolina  herself? 

It  is,  Sir,  only  within  a  few  years  that  Carolina  has  denied  the 
constitutionality  of  these  protective  laws.  The  gentleman  him- 
self has  narrated  to  us  the  true  history  of  her  proceedings  on 
this  point.  He  says  that,  after  the  passing  of  the  law  of  1828, 
despairing  then  of  being  able  to  abolish  the  system  of  protec- 
tion, political  men  went  forth  among  the  people,  and  set  up  the 
doctrine  that  the  system  was  unconstitutional.  "And  the  peo- 
ple," says  the  honourable  gentleman,  "received  the  doctrine." 
This,  I  believe,  is  true,  Sir.  The  people  did  then  receive  the 
doctrine;  they  had  never  entertained  it  before.  Down  to  that 
period,  the  constitutionality  of  these  laws  had  been  no  more 
doubted  in  South  Carolina  than  elsewhere.  And  I  suspect  it  is 
true,  Sir,  and  I  deem  it  a  great  misfortune,  that,  to  the  present 
moment,  a  great  portion  of  the  people  of  the  State  have  never 
yet  seen  more  than  one  side  of  the  argument.  I  believe  that 
thousands  of  honest  men  are  involved  in  scenes  now  passing, 
led  away  by  one-sided  views  of  the  question,  and  following 
their  leaders  by  the  impulses  of  an  unlimited  confidence.  De- 
pend upon  it,  Sir,  if  we  can  avoid  the  shock  of  arms,  a  day  for 
reconsideration  and  reflection  will  come  ;  truth  and  reason  will 
act  with  their  accustomed  force,  and  the  public  opinion  of  South 
Carolina  will  be  restored  to  its  usual  constitutional  and  patriotic 
tone. 

But,  Sir,  I  hold  South  Carolina  to  her  ancient,  her  cool,  her 
uninfluenced,  her  deliberate  opinions.  I  hold  her  to  her  own 
admissions,  nay,  to  her  own  claims  and  pretensions,  in  1789,  in 
the  first  Congress,  and  to  her  acknowledgments  and  avowed 
sentiments  through  a  long  series  of  succeeding  years.  I  hold 
her  to  the  principles  on  which  she  led  Congress  to  act  in  1810 ; 
or,  if  she  have  changed  her  own  opinions,  I  claim  some  respect 
for  those  who  still  retain  the  same  opinions.  I  say  she  is  pre- 
cluded from  asserting  that  doctrines,  which  she  has  herself  so 


420  WEBSTER. 

long  and  so  ably  sustained,  are  plain,  palpable,  and  dangerous 
violations  of  the  Constitution. 

Mr.  President,  if  the  friends  of  nullification  should  be  able  to 
propagate  their  opinions,  and  give  them  practical  effect,  they 
would,  in  my  judgment,  prove  themselves  the  most  skilful 
"architects  of  ruin,"  the  most  effectual  extinguishers  of  high- 
raised  expectation,  the  greatest  blasters  of  human  hopes,  that 
any  age  has  produced.  They  would  stand  up  to  proclaim,  in 
tones  that  would  pierce  the  ears  of  half  the  human  race,  that 
the  last  great  experiment  of  representative  government  had 
failed.  They  would  send  forth  sounds,  at  the  hearing  of  which 
the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  would  fed,  oven  in  its 
grave,  a  returning  sensation  of  vitality  and  resuscitation.  Mill- 
ions of  eyes,  of  those  who  now  feed  their  inherent  love  of  lib- 
erty on  the  success  of  the  American  example,  would  turn  away 
from  beholding  our  dismemberment,  and  find  no  place  on  Earth 
whereon  to  rest  their  gratified  sight.  Amidft  the  incantations 
and  orgies  of  nullification,  secession,  disunion,  and  revolution, 
would  be  celebrated  the  funeral  rites  of  constitutional  and 
republican  liberty. 

But,  Sir,  if  the  government  do  its  duty,  if  it  act  with  firmness 
and  with  moderation,  these  opinions  cannot  prevail.  J5e  ;i^- 
sured,  Sir,  be  assured,  that,  among  the  political  sentiments  of 
this  people,  the  love  of  union  is  still  uppermost.  They  will 
stand  fast  by  the  Constitution,  and  by  those  who  defend  it.  I 
rely  on  no  temporary  expedients,  on  no  political  combinations  ; 
but  I  rely  on  the  true  American  feeling,  the  genuine  patriotism 
of  the  people,  and  the  imperative  decision  of  the  public  voice. 
Disorder  and  confusion  indeed  may  arise  ;  scenes  of  commotion 
and  contest  are  threatened,  and  perhaps  may  come.  With  my 
whole  heart,  I  pray  for  the  continuance  of  the  domestic  peace 
and  quiet  of  the  country.  I  desire,  most  ardently,  the  restora- 
tion of  affection  and  harmony  to  all  its  parts.  I  desire  that 
every  citizen  of  the  whole  country  may  look  to  this  government 
with  no  other  sentiments  but  those  of  grateful  respect  and  at- 
tachment. But  I  cannot  yield,  even  to  kind  feelings,  the  cause 
of  the  Constitution,  the  true  glory  of  the  country,  and  the 
great  trust  which  we  hold  in  our  hands  for  succeeding  ages.  II' 
the  Constitution  cannot  be  maintained  without  meeting  those 
scenes  of  commotion  and  contest,  however  unwelcome,  they 
must  come.  We  cannot,  we  must  not,  we  dare  not,  omit  to  do 
that  which,  in  our  judgment,  the  safety  of  the  Union  requires. 
Not  regardless  of  consequences,  we  must  yet  meet  conse- 
quences; seeing  the  hazards  which  surround  the  discharge  of 
public  duty,  it  must  yet  be  discharged.  For  myself,  Sir,  I  shun 
no  responsibility  justly  devolving  on  me,  here  or  elsewhere,  in 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.  421 

attempting  to  maintain  the  cause.  I  am  tied  to  it  by  indisso- 
luble bands  of  affection  and  duty,  and  1  shall  cheerfully  partake 
in  its  fortunes  and  its  fate.  I  am  ready  to  perform  my  own  ap- 
propriate part,  whenever  and  wherever  the  occasion  may  call  on 
me,  and  to  take  my  chance  among  those  upon  whom  blows  may 
fall  first  and  fall  thickest.  I  shall  exert  every  faculty  I  possess 
in  aiding  to  prevent  the  Constitution  from  being  nullified,  de- 
stroyed, or  impaired ;  and  even  should  I  see  it  fall,  I  will  still, 
with  a  voice  feeble,  perhaps,  but  earnest  as  ever  issued  from 
human  lips,  and  with  fidelity  and  zeal  which  nothing  shall  extin- 
guish, call  on  the  PEOPLE  to  come  to  its  rescue.4 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.6 

MR.  PRESIDENT:  I  feel  the  magnitude  of  this  question.  We 
are  coming  to  a  vote  which  cannot  fail  to  produce  important 
effects  on  the  character  of  the  Senate  and  the  character  of  the 
government. 

Unhappily,  Sir,  the  Senate  finds  itself  involved  in  a  contro- 

4  Pending  the  discussion  of  the  Force  Bill,  a  member  of  the  President's  Cab- 
inet  railed  on  Webster  at  his  lodgings,  and  earnestly  requested  him  to  take  an 
active  part  in  the  defence  of  that  measure.  Some  time  before,  Calhoun  hud 
resigned  the  Vice-Presidency,  and  been  elected  to  the  Senate,  as  the  only  man 
fully  able  to  maintain  the  cause  <>f  South  Carolina  in  Confess.  Early  in  the 
debate,  several  of  the  President's  friends  in  the  Senate  attacked  the  bill  with 
great  severity,  and  were  thrown  into  dismay  when  Webster  declared  his  posi- 
tion:  which  he  did  in  the  following  terms:  "I  am  no  man's  leader;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  follow  no  lead  but  that  of  public,  duty  and  the  star  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. I  believe  the  country  is  in  considerable  danger;  I  believe  an  unlawful 
combination  threatens  the  integrity  of  the  Union.  I  believe  the  crisis  calls  for 
a  mild,  temperate,  forbearing,  but  inflexibly  firm  execution  of  the  laws;  and, 
under  this  conviction,  I  give  a  hearty  support  to  the  administration  in  all  meas- 
vhii-h  I  deem  to  be  fair,  just,  and  necessary." 

:,  In  the  Fall  of  LS'W,  President  Jackson  "assumed  the  responsibility"  of 
removing  the  public  deposits  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  where  they 
had  been  placed  by  law.  Before  doing  this,  however,  he  found  himself  under 
the  necessity  of  removing  from  office  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who 
d«'«-lined  to  execute  his  will  in  that  behalf.  At  last,  having  put  at  the  head 
of  the  Treasury  a  man  who  was  ready  to  do  his  bidding,  he  gave  a  peremptory 
order  for  the  removal.  This  was  the  most  daring  and  high-handed  of  all  his 
measures  against  the  bank,  and  wan  followed  by  most  disastrous  consequences 
to  the  business  of  the  country.  [See  page  407,  note  2.]  On  the  28th  March,  1834, 
the  Senate  adopted  a  resolution,  censuring  the  President's  action  in  that  re- 
moval.  On  the  17th  of  April,  the  President  forwarded  to  the  Senate  an  elaborate 
'  against  that  resolution.  That  protest  drew  from  Wobster,  on  the  17th 
of  May,  the  following  superb  speech,  which  I  give  entire. 


422  "WEBSTER. 

versy  with  the  President  of  the  United  States  ;  a  man  who  has 
rendered  most  distinguished  services  to  his  country,  has  hith- 
erto possessed  a  degree  of  popular  favour  perhaps  never  ex- 
ceeded, and  whose  honesty  of  motive  and  integrity  of  purpose 
are  still  admitted  by  those  who  maintain  that  his  administration 
has  fallen  into  lamentable  errors. 

On  some  of  the  interesting  questions  in  regard  to  which  the 
President  and  Senate  hold  opposite  opinions,  the  more  popular 
branch  of  the  legislature  concurs  with  the  executive.  It  is  not 
to  be  concealed  that  the  Senate  is  engaged  against  imposing 
odds.  It  can  sustain  itself  only  by  its  own  prudence  and  the 
justice  of  its  cause.  It  has  no  patronage  by  which  to  secure 
friends;  it  can  raise  up  no  advocates  through  the  dispensation 
of  favours,  for  it  has  no  favours  to  dispense.  Its  very  consti- 
tution, as  a  body  whose  members  are  elected  for  a  long  term,  is 
capable  of  being  rendered  obnoxious,  and  is  daily  made  the 
subject  of  opprobrious  remark.  It  is  already  denoim* 
independent  of  the  people,  and  aristocratic.  Xor  is  it,  like  the 
Other  House,  powerful  in  its  numbers  ;  not  being,  like  that,  so 
large  as  that  its  members  come  constantly  in  direct  and  sympa- 
thetic contact  with  the  whole  people.  Under  these  disadvan- 
tages, Sir,  which,  we  may  be  assured,  will  be  pressed  and  urged 
to  the  utmost  length,  there  is  but  one  course  for  us.  The 
Senate  must  stand  on  its  rendered  reasons.  It  must  put  forth 
the  grounds  of  its  proceedings,  and  it  must  then  rely  on  the 
intelligence  and  patriotism  of  the  people  to  carry  it  through  the 
contest. 

As  an  individual  member  of  the  Senate,  it  gives  me  great 
pain  to  be  engaged  in  such  a  conflict  with  the  executive  govern- 
ment. The  occurrences  of  the  last  session  are  fresh  in  the  recol- 
lection of  us  all ;  and,  having  felt  it  to  be  my  duty,  at  that  time, 
to  give  my  cordial  support  to  highly  important  measures  of  the 
administration,  I  ardently  hoped  that  nothing  might  occur  to 
place  me  afterwards  in  an  attitude  of  opposition.6  In  all  re- 
spects, and  in  every  way,  it  would  have  been  far  more  agree- 
able to  me  to  have  found  nothing  in  the  measures  of  thr 
utive  government  which  I  could  not  cheerfully  support.  The 
present  occasion  of  difference  has  not  been  sought  or  made  by 
me.  It  is  thrust  upon  me,  in  opposition  to  strong  opinions  and 
wishes,  on  my  part  not  concealed.  The  interference  with  the 
public  deposits  dispelled  all  hope  of  continued  concurrence 
with  the  administration,  and  was  a  measure  so  uncalled-for,  so 
unnecessary,  and,  in  my  judgment,  so  illegal  and  indefensible, 

G    Alluding  to  the  speaker's  course  in  reference  to  "The  Force  Bill."    See 
page  421,  note  4. 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.  423 

that,  with  whatever  reluctance  it  might  be  opposed,  opposition 
was  unavoidable. 

The  paper  before  us  has  grown  out  of  the  consequences  of 
this  interference.  It  is  a  paper  which  cannot  be  treated  with 
indifference.  The  doctrines  which  it  advances,  the  circumstan- 
ces which  have  attended  its  transmission  to  the  Senate,  and  the 
manner  in  which  the  Senate  may  now  dispose  of  it,  will  form  a 
memorable  era  in  the  history  of  the  government.  We  are 
either  to  enter  it  on  our  journals,  assent  to  its  sentiments,  and 
submit  to  its  rebuke,  or  we  must  answer  it,  with  the  respect  due 
to  the  chief  magistrate,  but  with  such  animadversion  on  its 
doctrines  as  they  deserve,  and  with  the  firmness  imposed  upon 
us  by  our  public  duties. 

I  shall  proceed,  then,  Sir,  to  consider  the  circumstances 
which  gave  rise  to  this  Protest;  to  examine  the  principles 
which  it  attempts  to  establish  ;  and  to  compare  those  principles 
with  the  Constitution  and  the  laws. 

On  the  28th  day  of  March,  the  Senate  adopted  a  resolution 
declaring  that,  "in  the  late  executive  proceedings  in  relation  to 
the  public  revenue,  the  President  had  assumed  a  power  not 
conferred  by  the  Constitution  and  laws,  but  in  derogation  of 
both."  In  that  resolution  I  concurred. 

It  is  not  a  direct  question,  now  again  before  us,  whether  the 
President  really  had  assumed  such  illegal  power  :  that  point  is 
decided,  so  far  as  the  Senate  ever  can  decide  it.  But  the  Pro- 
test denies  that,  supposing  the  President  to  have  assumed 
such  illegal  power,  the  Senate  could  properly  pass  the  resolu- 
tion ;  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  it  denies  that  the  Scnato 
could,  in  this  way,  express  any  opinion  about  it.  It  denies  that 
the  Senate  has  any  right,  by  resolution,  in  this  or  any  other 
case,  to  express  disapprobation  of  the  President's  conduct,  let 
that  conduct  be  what  it  may;  and  this,  one  of  the  leading 
doctrines  of  the  Protest,  I  propose  to  consider.  But,  as  I  con- 
curred in  the  resolution  of  the  28th  of  March,  and  did  not 
trouble  the  Senate,  at  that  time,  with  any  statement  of  my  own 
reasons,  I  will  avail  myself  of  this  opportunity  to  explain, 
shortly,  what  those  reasons  were. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  I  have  to  say,  that  I  did  not  vote  for 
the  resolution  on  the  mere  ground  of  the  removal  of  Mr.  Duane 
from  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Although  I 
disapprove  of  the  removal  altogether,  yet  the  power  of  removal 
docs  exist  in  the  President,  according  to  the  established  con- 
struction of  the  Constitution  ;  and  therefore,  although  in  a 
particular  case  it  may  be  abused,  and,  in  my  opinion,  was 
abused  in  this  case,  yet  its  exercise  cannot  be  justly  said  to  be 
an  assumption  or  usurpation.  We  must  all  agree  that  Mr. 


424  "WEBSTER. 

Duane  is  out  of  office.  lie  has,  therefore,  been  removed  by  a 
power  constitutionally  competent  to  remove  him,  whatever  may 
be  thought  of  the  exercise  of  that  power  under  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case. 

If,  then,  the  act  of  removing  the  Secretary  be  not  the  assump- 
tion of  power  which  the  resolution  declares,  in  what  is  that  as- 
sumption found  ?  Before  giving  a  precise  answer  to  this  inquiry, 
allow  me  to  recur  to  some  of  the  principal  previous  events. 

At  the  end  of  the  last  session  of  Congress,  the  public  moneys 
of  the  United  States  were  still  in  their  proper  place.  That 
place  was  fixed  by  the  law  of  the  land,  and  no  power  of  change 
was  conferred  on  any  other  human  being  than  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury.  On  him  the  power  of  change  was  conferred,  to 
be  exercised  by  himself,  if  emergency  should  arise,  and  to  be 
^exercised  for  reasons  which  he  was  bound  to  lay  before  Con- 
*gress.  No  other  oilicer  of  the  government  had  the  slightest 
pretence  of  authority  to  lay  his  hand  on  these  moneys  for  the 
purpose  of  changing  the  place  of  their  custody.  All  the  other 
heads  of  departments  together  could  not  touch  them.  The 
President  could  not  touch  them.  The  power  of  change  was  a 
trust  confided  to  the  discretion  of  the  Secretary,  and  to  his  dis- 
cretion alone.  The  President  had  no  more  authority  to  take 
upon  himself  this  duty,  thus  assigned  expressly  by  law  to  the 
Secretary,  than  he  had  to  make  the  animal  report  to  Con 
or  the  annual  commercial  statements,  or  to  perform  any  other 
service  which  the  hnv  specially  requires  of  the  Secretary,  lie 
might  just  as  well  sign  the  warrants  for  moneys,  in  the  ordinary 
daily  disbursements  of  government,  instead  of  the  Secretary. 
The  statute  had  assigned  the  especial  duty  of  removing  the 
deposits,  if  removed  at  all,  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
and  to  him  alone.  The  consideration  of  the  propriety  or  ne- 
cessity of  removal  must  be  the  consideration  of  the  Secretary; 
the  decision  to  remove,  his  decision;  and  the  act  of  removal, 
his  act. 

Xow,  Sir,  on  the  18th  day  of  September  last,  a  resolution  was 
taken  to  remove  these  deposits  from  their  legislative,  that  is  to 
say,  their  legal  custody.  JJ7u)se  resolution  iwts  this  ?  On  the 
1st  day  of  October,  they  were  removed.  13i/  wliose  jioin 
tin'*  done  ?  The  papers  necessary  to  accomplish  the  removal 
(that  is,  the  orders  and  drafts)  are,  it  is  true,  signed  by  the 
Secretary.  The  President's  name  is  not  subscribed  to  them ; 
nor  does  the  Secretary,  in  any  of  them,  recite  or  declare  that 
he  does  the  act  by  direction  of  the  President,  or  on  the  Presi- 
dent's responsibility.  In  form,  the  whole  proceeding  is  the 
proceeding  of  the  Secretary,  and,  as  such,  had  the  legal  effect. 
The  deposits  were  removed.  But  whose  act  was  it,  in  truth 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  425 

and  reality?  Whose  will  accomplished  it?  On  whose  respon- 
sibility was  it  adopted '? 

These  questions  are  all  explicitly  answered  by  the  President 
himself,  in  the  paper,  under  his  own  hand,  read  to  the  Cabinet 
on  the  18th  of  September,  and  published  by  his  authority.  In 
this  paper  the  President  declares,  in  so  many  words,  that  he 
1  >'urs  his  Cabinet  to  consider  the  proposed  measure  as  his  own  ; 
that  its  responsibility  has  been  assumed  by  him ;  and  that  he 
names  the  first  day  of  October  as  a  period  proper  for  its 
execution. 

Now,  Sir,  it  is  precisely  this  which  I  deem  an  assumption  of 
power  not  conferred  by  the  Constitution  and  laws.  I  think  the 
lav.-  did  not  give  this  authority  to  the  President,  nor  impose  on 
him  the  responsibility  of  its  exercise.  It  is  evident  that,  in  this 
removal,  the  Secretary  was  in  reality  nothing  but  the  scribe  : 
lie  was  the  pen  in  the  President's  hand,  and  no  more.  Nothing 
depended  on  his  discretion,  his  judgment,  or  his  responsibility. 
The  removal  indeed  has  been  admitted  and  defended  in  the 
Senate,  as  the  direct  act  of  the  President  himself.  This,  Sir,  is 
what  I  call  assumption  of  power.  If  the  President  had  issued 
an  order  for  the  removal  of  the  deposits  in  his  own  name,  and 
under  his  own  hand,  it  would  have  been  an  illegal  order,  and 
the  bank  would  not  have  been  at  liberty  to  obey  it.  For  the 
same  reason,  if  the.  Secretary's  order  had  recited  that  it  was 
issued  by  the  President's  direction,  and  on  the  President's 
authority,  it  would  have  shown,  on  its  face,  that  it  was  illegal 
and  invalid.  Xo  one  can  doubt  that.  The  act  of  removal,  to 
i>e  lawful,  must  be  the  bona  fide  act  of  the  Secretary  ;  his  judg- 
ment, the  result  of  hix  deliberations,  the  volition  of  his  mind. 
All  are  able  to  see  the  difference  between  the  power  to  remove 
I'-tary  from  office  and  the  power  to  control  him,  in  all  or 
any  of  his  duties,  while  in  office.  The  law  charges  the  officer, 
whoevi T  he  may  be,  with  the  performance  of  certain  duties. 
The  President,  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate,  appoints  an 
individual  to  be  such  officer;  and  this  individual  he  may  re- 
move, if  he  so  please  ;  but,  until  removed,  he  is  the  officer,  and 
remains  charged  with  the  duties  of  his  station, — duties  which 
nobody  else  can  perform,  and  for  the  neglect  or  violation  of 
which  he  is  liable  to  be  impeached. 

The  distinction  is  visible  and  broad  between  the  power  of  re- 
moval and  the  power  to  control  an  officer  not  removed.  The 
President,  it  is  true,  may  terminate  hi.s  political  life;  but  he 
cannot  control  his  powers  and  functions,  and  act  upon  him  as  a 
machine,  while  he  is  allowed  to  live.  This  power  of  control  and 
direction,  nowhere  given,  certainly,  by  any  express  provision  of 
the  Constitution  or  laws,  is  derived,  by  those  who  maintain  it, 


426  WEBSTER. 

from  the  right  of  removal  ;  that  is  to  say.  it  is  a  constructive 
power.  But  the  right  of  removal  itself  is  but  a  constructive 
power ;  it  has  no  express  warrant  in  the  Constitution.  A  very 
important  power,  then,  is  raised  by  construction  in  the  first 
place ;  and,  being  thus  raised,  it  becomes  a  fountain  out  of 
which  other  important  powers,  raised  also  by  construction,  are 
to  be  supplied.  There  is  no  little  danger  that  such  a  mode  of 
reasoning  may  be  carried  too  far.  It  cannot  be  maintained  that 
the  power  of  direct  control  necessarily  flows  from  the  power  of 
removal.  Suppose  it  had  been  decided  in  1789,  when  the  ques- 
tio'n  was  debated,  that  the  President  does  not  possess  the 
power  of  removal:  will  it  be  contended  that,  in  that  case,  his 
right  of  interference  with  the  acts  and  duties  of  executive  offi- 
cers would  be  less  than  it  now  is?  The  reason  of  the  thing 
would  seem  to  be  the  other  way.  If  the  President  may  remove 
an  incumbent  when  he  becomes  satisfied  of  his  unfaithfulness 
and  incapacity,  there  would  appear  to  be  less  necessity  to  give 
him  also  a  right  of  control,  than  there  would  be  if  he  could  not 
remove  him. 

AVe  may  try  this  question  by  supposing  it  to  arise  in  a  judi- 
cial proceeding.  If  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  were  im- 
peached for  removing  the  deposits,  could  he  justify  himself  by 
saying  that  he  did  it  by  the  President's  direction  ?  If  he  could," 
then  no  executive  officer  could  ever  be  impeached,  who  obeys 
the  President;  and  the  whole  notion  of  making  such  officers 
impeachable  at  all  would  be  farcical.  If  he  could  not  so  justify 
himself,  (and  all  will  allow  he  could  not,)  the  reason  can  only 
be,  that  the  act  of  removal  is  his  own  act ;  the  power,  a  power 
confided  to  him,  for  the  just  exercise  of  which  the  law  looks  to 
his  discretion,  his  honesty,  and  his  direct  responsibility. 

Now,  Sir,  the  President  wishes  the  world  to  understand  that 
he  himself  decided  on  the  question  of  the  removal  of  the  de- 
posits ;  that  he  took  the  whole  of  the  measure  upon  himself ; 
that  he  wished  it  to  be  considered  his  own  act ;  that  he  not  only 
himself  decided  that  the  thing  should  be  done,  but  regulated  its 
details  also,  and  named  the  day  for  carrying  it  into  effect. 

I  have  always  entertained  a  very  erroneous  view  of  the  par- 
tition of  powers,  and  of  the  true  nature  of  official  responsibility 
under  our  Constitution,  if  this  be  not  a  plain  case  of  tl. 
sumption  of  power. 

The  legislature  had  fixed  a  place,  by  law,  for  the  keeping  of 
the  public  money.  They  had,  at  the  same  time,  and  by  the 
same  law,  created  and  conferred  a  power  of  removal,  to  be  exor- 
cised contingently.  This  power  they  had  vested  in  the  Secre- 
tary, by  express  words.  The  law  did  not  say  that  the  deposits 
should  be  made  in  the  bank,  unless  the  President  should  order 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.  427 

otherwise ;  but  it  did  say  that  they  should  be  made  there,  un- 
less the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  should  order  otherwise.  I 
put  it  to  the  plain  sense  and  common  candour  of  all  men, 
whether  the  discretion  which  was  thus  to  be  exercised  over  the 
subject  was  not  the  Secretary's  own  personal  discretion ;  and 
whether,  therefore,  the  interposition  of  the  authority  of  another, 
acting  directly  and  conclusively  on  the  subject,  deciding  the 
whole  question,  even  in  its  particulars  and  details,  be  not  an 
assumption  of  power. 

The  Senate  regarded  this  interposition  as  an  encroachment 
by  the  executive  on  other  branches  of  the  government ;  as  an 
interference  with  the  legislative  disposition  of  the  public  treas- 
ure. It  was  strongly  and  forcibly  urged,  yesterday,  by  the  hon- 
ourable member  from  South  Carolina,  that  the  true  and  only 
mode  of  preserving  any  balance  of  power,  in  mixed  govern- 
ment?, is  to  keep  an  exact  balance.  This  is  very  true  ;  and  to 
this  end  encroachment  must  be  resisted  at  the  first  step.  Tho 
question  is,  therefore,  whether,  upon  the  true  principles  of  tho 
Constitution,  this  exercise  of  power  by  the  President  can  be 
justified.  Whether  the  consequences  be  prejudicial  or  not,  if 
there  be  an  illegal  exercise  of  power,  it  is  to  be  resisted  in  tho 
proper  manner.  Even  if  no  harm  or  inconvenience  result  from 
transgressing  the  boundary,  the  intrusion  is  not  to  be  suffered 
to  pass  unnoticed.  Every  encroachment*  groat  or  small,  is  im- 
portant enough  to  awaken  the  attention  of  those  who  are 
intrusted  with  the  preservation  of  a  constitutional  government. 
~\Ve  are  not  to  wait  till  great  public  mischiefs  come,  till  the  gov- 
ernment is  overthrown,  or  liberty  itself  put  in  extreme  jeopardy. 
We  should  not  be  worthy  sons  of  our  fathers,  were  we,  so  to 
regard  great  questions  affecting  the  general  freedom.  Those 
fathers  accomplished  the  lie  volution  on  a  strict  question  of 
principle.  The  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  asserted  a  right  to 
tax  the  Colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever ;  and  it  was  precisely 
on  this  question  that  they  made  the  Revolution  turn.  Tho 
amount  of  taxation  was  trifling,  but  the  claim  itself  was  incon- 
sistent with  liberty ;  and  that  was,  in  their  eyes,  enough.  It 
was  against  the  recital  of  an  Act  of  Parliament,  rather  than 
against  any  suffering  under  its  enactments,  that  they  took  up 
arms.  They  went  to  war  against  a  preamble.  They  fought 
seven  years  against  a  declaration.  They  poured  out  their 
treasures  and  their  blood  like  water,  in  a  contest  in  opposition 
to  an  assertion  which  those  less  sagacious  and  not  so  well 
schooled  in  the  principles  of  civil  liberty  would  have  regarded 
as  barren  phraseology,  or  mere  parade  of  words.  They  saw  in 
the  claim  of  tho  British  Parliament  a  seminal  principle  of  mis- 
chief, the  germ  of  unjust  power ;  they  detected  it,  dragged  it 


428  WEBSTER. 

forth  from  underneath  its  plausible  disguises,  struck  at  it ;  nor 
did  it  elude  either  their  steady  eye  or  their  well-directed  blow 
till  they  had  extirpated  and  destroyed  it,  to  the  smallest  fibre. 
On  this  question  of  principle,  while  actual  suffering  was  yet 
afar  off,  they  raised  their  flag  against  a  power,  to  which,  for 
purposes  of  foreign  conquest  and  subjugation,  Home,  in  the 
height  of  her  glory,  is  not  to  be  compared  ;  a  power  which  has 
dotted  over  the  surface  of  the  whole  globe  with  her  possessions 
and  military  posts,  whose  morning  drum-beat,  following  the 
Sun,  and  keeping  company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  Earth 
daily  with  one  continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial 
airs  of  England. 

The  necessity  of  holding  strictly  to  the  principle  upon  which 
free  governments  are  constructed,  and  to  the  precise  lines 
which  fix  the  partitions  of  power  between  different  branches,  is 
as  plain,  if  not  as  cogent,  as  that  of  resisting,  as  our  fathers  did, 
the  strides  of  the  parent  country  upon  the  rights  of  the  Colo- 
nies;  because,  whether  the  power  which  exceeds  its  just  limits 
be  foreign  or  domestic,  whether  it  be  the  encroachment  of  all 
branches  on  the  rights  of  the  people,  or  that  of  one  branch  on 
the  rights  of  others,  in  either  case  the  balanced  and  well- 
adjusted  machinery  of  free  government  is  disturbed,  and,  if  the 
derangement  go  on,  the  whole  system  must  fall. 

But  the  case  before  us  is  not  a  case  of  merely  theoretic  in- 
fringement ;  nor  is  it  one  of  trilling  importance.  Far  otherwise. 
It  respects  one  of  the  highest  and  most  important  of  all  the 
powers  of  government ;  that  is  to  say,  the  custody  and  control 
of  the  public  money.  The  act  of  removing  the  deposits,  which 
I  now  consider  as  the  President's  act,  and  which  his  friends 
on  this  floor  defend  as  his  act,  took  the  national  purse  from 
beneath  the  security  and  guardianship  of  the  law,  and  disposed 
of  its  contents,  in  parcels,  in  such  places  of  deposit  as  he  chose 
to  select.  At  this  very  moment,  every  dollar  of  the  public 
treasure  is  subject,  so  far  as  respects  its  custody  and  safe-keep- 
ing, to  his  unlimited  control.  We  know  not  where  it  is  to-day ; 
still  less  do  we  know  where  it  may  be  to-morrow. 

Eut,  Mr.  President,  this  is  not  all.  There  is  another  part  of 
the  case,  which  has  not  been  so  much  discussed,  but  which  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  still  more  indefensible  in  its  character.  It  is 
something  which  may  well  teach  us  the  tendency  of  power  to 
move  forward  with  accelerated  pace,  if  it  be  allowed  to  take  the 
first  step.  The  13ank  of  the  United  States,  in  addition  to  the 
services  rendered  to  the  treasury,  gave  for  its  charter,  and  for 
the  use  of  the  public  deposits,  a  bonus  or  outright  sum  of  one 
million  and  a  half  of  dollars.  This  sum  was  paid  by  the  bank 
into  the  treasury  soon  after  the  coinmeucement  of  its  charter. 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  429 

In  the  Act  which  passed  both  Houses  for  renewing  the  charter, 
in  1832,  it  was  provided  that  the  bank,  for  the  same  considera- 
tion, should  pay  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  a-year,  during 
the  period  for  which  it  was  proposed  to  renew  it.  A  similar 
provision  is  in  the  bill  which  I  asked  leave  to  introduce  some 
weeks  ago.  Xow,  Sir,  this  shows  that  the  custody  of  the  de- 
posits is  a  benefit  for  which  a  bank  may  well  afford  to  pay  a 
large  annual  sum.  The  banks  which  now  hold  the  deposits  pay 
nothing  to  the  public  ;  they  give  no  bonus,  they  pay  no  annuity. 
But  this  loss  of  so  much  money  is  not  the  worst  part  of  the  case, 
nor  that  which  ought  most  to  alarm  us.  Although  they  pay 
nothing  to  the  public,  they  do  pay,  nevertheless,  such  sums, 
and  for  such  uses,  as  may  be  agreed  upon  between  themselves 
and  the  executive  government.  We  are  officially  informed  that 
an  oilicer  is  appointed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  in- 
spect or  superintend  these  selected  banks ;  and  this  officer  is 
compensated  by  a  salary  fixed  by  the  executive,  agreed  to  by 
the  banks,  and  paid  by  them.  I  ask,  Sir,  if  there  can  be  a  more 
irregular  or  a  more  illegal  transaction  than  this  ?  Whose  money 
is  it  out  of  which  this  salary  is  paid?  Is  it  not  money  justly 
due  to  the  United  States,  and  paid,  because  it  is  so  due,  for  the 
advantage  of  holding  the  deposits?  If  a  dollar  is  received  on 
that  account,  is  not  its  only  true  destination  into  the  general 
treasury  of  the  government?  And  who  has  authority,  without 
law,  to  create  an  olliee,  to  fix  a  salary,  and  to  pay  that  salary 
out  of  this  money  ?  Here  is  an  inspector  or  supervisor  of  the 
deposit  banks.  But  what  law  has  provided  for  such  an  officer? 
What  commission  has  he  received?  Who  concurred  in  his  ap- 
pointment? What  oath  does  he  take?  How  is  he  to  be  pun- 
ished or  impeached,  if  he  colludes  with  any  of  these  banks  to 
embezzle  the  public  money  or  defraud  the  government?  The 
value  of  the  use  of  this  public  money  to  the  deposit  banks  is 
probably  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  ;  or,  if  less  than 
that,  it  is  yet,  certainly,  a  very  great  sum.  May  the  President 
appoint  whatever  officers  he  pleases,  with  whatever  duties  he 
1» leases,  and  pay  them  as  much  as  he  pleases  out  of  these 
moneys  thus  paid  by  the  banks,  for  the  sake  of  having  the 
deposit*? 

.Mr.  President,  the  executive  claim  of  power  is  exactly  this, 
that  the  President  may  keep  the  money  of  the  public  in  what- 
ever banks  he  chooses,  on  whatever  terms  he  chooses,  and  to 
apply  the  sums  which  these  banks  are  willing  to  pay  for  its  use 
to  whatever  purposes  lie  chooses.  These  sums  are  not  to  come 
into  the  general  treasury.  They  are  to  be  appropriated  before 
they  get  there  ;  they  are  never  to  be  brought  under  the  control 
of  Congress ;  they  are  to  be  paid  to^  officers  and  agents  not 


430  WEBSTER. 

known  to  the  law,  not  nominated  to  the  Senate,  and  responsible 
to  nobody  but  the  executive  itself.  I  ask  gentlemen  if  all  this 
be  lawful?  Are  they  prepared  to  defend  it?  AVill  they  stand 
lip  and  justify  it?  In  my  opinion,  Sir,  it  is  a  dear  and  a  most 
dangerous  assumption  of  power.  It  is  the  creation  of  office 
without  law  ;  the  appointment  to  office  without  consulting  the 
Senate ;  the  establishment  of  a  salary  without  law ;  and  the 
payment  of  that  salary  out  of  a  fund  which  is  itself  derived 
from  the  use  of  the  public  treasures.  This.  Sir,  is  my  other 
iva-srm  for  concurring  in  the  vote  of  the  28th  of  March  ;  and  on 
grounds  I  leave  the  propriety  of  that  vote,  so  far  as  I  am 
concerned  with  it,  to  be  judged  of  by  the  country. 

But,  Sir,  the  President  denies  the  power  of  the  Senate  to  pass 
any  such  resolution,  on  any  ground  whatever.  Suppose  the 
declaration  contained  in  the  resolution  to  be  true  ;  suppose  the 
President  had,  in  fact,  assumed  powers  not  granted  to  him: 
does  the  Senate  possess  the  right  to  declare  its  opinion,  affirm- 
ing this  fact,  or  does  it  not?  I  maintain  that  the  Senate  does 
possess  such  a  power  ;  the  President  denies  it. 

Mr.  President,  we  need  not  look  far,  nor  search  deep,  for  the 
foundation  of  this  right  in  the  Senate.  It  is  clearly  visible,  and 
close  at  hand.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  the  right  of  self-defence. 
In  the  second  place,  it  is  a  right  founded  on  the  duty  of  repre- 
sentative bodies,  in  a  free  government,  to  defend  the  public 
liberty  against  encroachment.  We  must  presume  that  the  Sen- 
ate honestly  entertained  the  opinion  expressed  in  the  resolution 
of  the  28th  of  March ;  and,  entertaining  that  opinion,  its  right 
to  express  it  is  but  the  necessary  consequence  of  its  right  to 
defend  its  own  constitutional  authority,  as  one  branch  of  the 
government.  This  is  its  clear  right,  and  this,  too,  is  its  impera- 
tive duty. 

If  one  or  both  the  other  branches  of  the  government  happen 
to  do  that  which  appears  to  us  inconsistent  with  the  constitu- 
tional rights  of  the  Senate,  will  any  one  say  that  the  Senate  is 
yet  bound  to  be  passive,  and  to  be  silent?  to  do  nothing,  and  to 
say  nothing?  Or,  if  one  branch  appears  to  encroach  on  the 
rights  of  the  other  two,  have  these  two  no  power  of  remon- 
strance, complaint,  or  resistance?  Sir,  the  question  may  be  put 
in  a  still  more  striking  form.  Has  the  Senate  a  right  to  hare  an 
opinion  in  a  case  of  this  kind  ?  If  it  may  have  an  opinion,  how 
is  that  opinion  to  be  ascertained  but  by  resolution  and  vote? 
The  objection  must  go  the  whole  length  ;  it  must  maintain  that 
the  Senate  has  not  only  no  right  to  express  opinions,  but  no 
right  to  form  opinions,  on  the  conduct  of  the  executive  govern- 
ment, though  in  matters  intimately  affecting  the  power 
duties  of  the  Senate  itself.  It  is  not  possible,  Sir,  that  such  a 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  431 

doctrine  can  be  maintained  for  a  single  moment.  All  political 
bodies  resist  what  they  deem  encroachments,  by  resolutions 
expressive  of  their  sentiments,  and  their  purpose  to  resist  such 
encroachments.  When  such  a  resolution  is  presented  for  its 
consideration,  the  question  is,  whether  it  be  true  ;  not  whether 
the  body  has  authority  to  pass  it,  admitting  it  to  be  true.  The 
Senate,  like  oilier  public  bodies,  is  perfectly  justifiable  in  de- 
fending, in  this  mode,  either  its  legislative  or  executive  author- 
ity. The  usages  of  Parliament,  the  practice  in  our  State  legis- 
latures and  assemblies,  both  before  and  since  the  Revolution, 
and  precedents  in  the  Senate  itself,  fully  maintain  this  right. 
The  case  of  the  Panama  mission  is  in  point.  In  that  case,  Mr. 
Branch,  from  North  Carolina,  introduced  a  resolution,  which, 
after  reciting  that  the  President,  in  his  annual  message,  and  in 
his  communication  to  the  Senate,  had  asserted  that  he  possessed 
an  authority  to  make  certain  appointments,  although  the  appoint- 
mf-idit  had  not  been  made,  went  on  to  declare  that  "  a  silent  acqui- 
ttomot  on  the  part  of  this  body,  may,  at  some  future  time,  be  ilraini 
into  danr/cmux  precedent" ;  and  to  resolve,  therefore,  that  the 
President  does  not  possess  the  right  or  power  said  to  be  claimed 
by  him.  This  resolution  was  discussed,  and  finally  laid  on  the 
table.  But  the  question  discussed  was,  whether  the  resolution 
was  correct,  in  fact  and  principle  ;  not  whether  the  Senate  had 
any  right  to  pass  such  resolution.  So  far  as  I  remember,  no  one 
pretended  that,  if  the  President  had  exceeded  his  authority, 
the  Senate  might  not  so  declare  by  resolution.  No  one  ventured 
to  contend  that,  whether  the  rights  of  the  Senate  were  invaded 
or  not,  the  Senate  must  hold  its  peace. 

The  Protest  labours  strenuously  to  show  that  the  Senate 
adopted  the  resolution  of  the  28th  of  March,  under  its  judicial 
authority.  The  reason  of  this  attempt  is  obvious  enough.  If 
the  Senate,  in  its  judicial  character,  has  been  trying  the  Presi- 
dent, then  he  has  not  had  a  regular  and  formal  trial ;  and,  on 
that  ground,  it  is  hoped  the  public  sympathy  may  be  moved. 
But  the  Senate  has  acted  not  in  its  judicial,  but  in  its  legislative 
capacity.  As  a  legislative  body,  it  has  defended  its  own  just 
authority,  and  the  authority  of  the  other  branch  of  the  legisla- 
ture. Whatever  attacks  our  own  rights  and  privileges,  or  what- 
ever encroaches  on  the  power  of  both  House.?,  we  may  oppose 
and  resist,  l»y  declaration,  resolution,  or  other  similar  proceed- 
It'  \ve  look  to  the  hooks  of  precedents,  if  we  examine  the 
journals  of  legislative  bodies,  we  find  everywhere  instances  of 
such  proceedi1 

It  is  to  be  observed,  Sir,  that  the  Protest  imposes  silence  on 
the  House  of  Representatives  as  well  as  on  the  Senate.  It  de- 
clares that  no  power  is  conferred  on  either  branch  of  the  legis- 


432  WEBSTER. 

lature  to  consider  or  decide  upon  official  acts  of  the  executive, 
for  the  purpose  of  censure,  and  without  a  view  to  legislation  or 
impeachment.  This,  I  think,  Sir,  is  pretty  high-toned  preten- 
sion. According  to  this  doctrine,  neither  House  could  assert  its 
own  rights,  however  the  executive  might  assail  them;  neither 
House  could  point  out  the  danger  to  the  people,  however  fast 
executire  encroachment  might  be  extending  itself,  or  whatever 
danger  it  might  threaten  to  the  public  liberties.  If  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress  may  not  express  an  opinion  of  executive 
conduct  by  resolution,  there  is  the  same  reason  why  they  should 
not  express  it  in  any  other  form,  or  by  any  other  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding. Indeed,  the  Protest  limits  both  Houses,  expressly,  to 
the  case  of  impeachment.  If  the  House  of  lu-pivsentatives  are 
not  about  to  impeach  the  President,  they  have  nothing  to  say 
of  his  measures  or  of  his  conduct;  and  unless  the  Senate  are 
engaged  in  trying  an  impeachment,  their  mouths,  too,  are 
stopped.  It  is  the  practice  of  the  executive  to  send  us  an  annual 
message,  in  which  he  rehearses  the  general  proceedings  of  the 
executive  for  the  past  year.  This  message  we  refer  to  our  com- 
mittees for  consideration.  But,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Protest,  they  can  express  no  opinion  upon  any  executive  pro- 
ceeding upon  which  it  gives  information.  Suppose*  the  Presi- 
dent had  told  us,  in  his  la>t  annual  message,  what  he  had 
previously  told  us  in  his  cabinet  paper,  that  the  removal  of  the 
deposits  was  ///.s  act,  done  on  his  responsibility  ;  and  that  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  exercised  no  discretion,  formed 
no  judgment,  presumed  to  have  no  opinions  whatever,  on  the 
subject.  This  part  of  the  message  would  have  been  referred  to 
the  Committee  on  Finance;  but  what  could  they  say?  They 
think  it  shows  a  plain  violation  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws  ;  but  the  President  is  not  impeached;  therefore  they  ran 
express  no  censure.  They  think  it  a  direct  invasion  of  legisla- 
tive power,  but  they  must  not  say  so.  They  may  indeed  com- 
mend, if  they  can.  The  grateful  business  of  praise  is  lawful  to 
them  ;  but  if,  instead  of  commendation  and  applause,  they  find 
cause  for  disapprobation,  censure,  or  alarm,  the  Protest  enjoins 
upon  them  absolute  silence. 

Formerly,  Sir,  it  was  a  practice  for  the  President  to  meet  both 
Houses,  at  the  opening  of  the  session,  and  deliver  a  speech,  as 
is  still  the  usage  of  some  of  the  State  legislatures.  To  this 
speech  there  was  an  answer  from  each  House,  and  those  answers 
expressed,  freely,  the  sentiments  of  the  House  upon  all  the 
merits  and  faults  of  the  administration.  The  discussion  of  the 
topics  contained  in  the  speech,  and  the  debate  on  the  an- 
usually  drew  out  the  whole  force  of  parties,  and  lasted  some- 
times a  week.  President  Washington's  conduct,  in  every  year 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  433 

of  his  administration,  was  thus  freely  and  publicly  canvassed. 
He  did  not  complain  of  it ;  he  did  not  doubt  that  both  Houses 
had  a  perfect  right  to  comment,  with  the  utmost  latitude,  con- 
sistent with  decorum,  upon  all  his  measures.  Answers,  or 
amendments  to  answers,  were  not  unfrequently  proposed,  very 
hostile  to  his  own  course  of  public  policy,  if  not  sometimes  bor- 
dering on  disrespect.  And  when  they  did  express  respect  and 
regard,  there  were  votes  ready  to  be  recorded  against  the  ex- 
pression of  those  sentiments.  To  all  this  President  Washington 
took  no  exception  ;  for  he  well  knew  that  these,  and  similar 
proceedings,  belonged  to  the  power  of  popular  bodies.  But  if 
the  President  were  now  to  meet  us  with  a  speech,  and  should 
inform  us  of  measures,  adopted  by  himself  in  the  recess,  which 
should  appear  to  us  the  most  plain,  palpable,  and  dangerous 
violations  of  the  Constitution,  we  must  nevertheless  either  keep 
respectful  silence,  or  fill  our  answer  merely  with  courtly  phrases 
of  approbation. 

Mr.  President,  I  know  not  who  wrote  this  Protest,7  but  I  con- 
fe>s  I  am  astonished,  truly  astonished,  as  well  at  the  want  of 
knowledge  which  it  displays  of  constitutional  law,  as  at  the 
high  and  dangerous  pretensions  which  it  puts  forth.  Neither 
branch  of  the  legislature  can  express  censure  upon  the  Presi- 
dent's conduct  I  Suppose  that  we  should  see  him  enlisting 
troops  and  raising  an  army,  can  we  say  nothing,  and  do  noth- 
ing V  Suppose  he  were  to  declare  war  against  a  foreign  power, 
and  put  the  army  and  the  fleet  in  action ;  are  we  still  to  be 
silent?  Suppose  we  should  see  him  borrowing  money  on  the 
credit  of  the  United  States  ;  are  we  yet  to  wait  for  impeach- 
ment? Indeed,  Sir,  in  regard  to  this  borrowing  money  on  the 
credit  of  the  United  States,  I  wish  to  call  the  a^ention  of  the 
S"iiati»  not  only  to  what  might  happen,  but  to  what  has  actually 
happened.  We  are  informed  that  the  Post-Office  Department, 
a  department  over  which  the  President  claims  the  same  control 
as  over  the  rest,  ha  a  actually  borrowed  near  half  a  million  vf  money 
on  the  MtJii.  <>f  the  United  States. 

Mr.  President,  the  first  power  granted  to  Congress  by  the 
Constitution  is  the  power  to  lay  taxes  ;  the  second,  the  power  to 
borrow  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States.  Now,  Sir, 
where  does  the  executive  find  its  authority,  in  or  through  any 
department,  to  borrow  money  without  authority  of  Congress? 
This  proceeding  appears  to  me  wholly  illegal,  and  reprehensible 
in  a  very  high  degree.  It  may  be  said  that  it  is  not  true  that 

7  Jt  was  pretty  well  understood  at  the  time,  that  the  Protest  was  written  by 
the  Hon.  L'dward  Livingston,  then  Secretary  of  State;  but  Webster  was,  in 
propriety,  bound  to  ignore  this.  Mr.  Livingston  was  a  very  able,  accomplished, 
and  honourable  man;  but  probably  u  better  lawyer  than  statesman. 


434  WEBSTER. 

this  money  is  borrowed  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States,  but 
that  it  is  borrowed  on  the  credit  of  the  Post-Office  Department. 
But  that  would  be  mere  evasion.  The  department  is  but  a 
name.  It  is  an  office,  and  nothing  more.  The  banks  have  not 
lent  this  money  to  any  officer.  If  Congress  should  abolish  the 
whole  department  to-morrow,  would  the  banks  not  expect  the 
United  States  to  replace  this  borrowed  money?  The  money, 
then,  is  borrowed  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States,— an  act 
which  Congress  alone  is  competent  to  authorize.  If  the 
Office  Department  may  borrow  money,  so  may  the  AVur  Depart- 
ment, and  the  Navy  Department.  If  half  a  million  may  be 
borrowed,  ten  millions  may  be  borrowed.  What,  then,  if  this 
transaction  shall  be  justified,  is  to  hinder  the  executive  from 
borrowing  money  to  maintain  fleets  and  armies,  or  for  any  other 
purpose,  at  his  pleasure,  without  any  authority  of  law?  Yet 
even  this,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Protest,  we  have  no 
right  to  complain  of.  AYe  have  no  right  to  declare  that  an  exec- 
utive department  has  violated  the  Constitution  and  broken  the 
law,  by  borrowing  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States. 
Nor  could  we  make  a  similar  declaration,  if  we  were  to  see  the 
executive,  by  means  of  this  borrowed  money,  enlisting  armies 
and  equipping  fleets.  And  yet,  Sir,  the  President  has  found  no 
difficulty,  heretofore,  in  expressing  his  opinions,  in  a  p"_ 
called  for  by  the  exercise  of  any  official  duty,  upon  the  conduct  and 
proceedings  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress.  At  the  commence- 
ment of  this  session,  he  sent  us  a  message,  commenting  on  the 
land  bill  which  the  two  Houses  passed  at  the  end  of  the  last 
session.  That  bill  he  had  not  approved,  nor  had  he  returned  it 
with  objections.  Congress  was  dissolved;  and  the  bill,  there- 
fore, was  completely  dead,  and  could  not  be  revived.  No  com- 
munication from  him  could  have  the  least  possible  effect  as  an 
official  act.  Yet  he  saw  fit  to  send  a  message  on  the  subject, 
and  in  that  message  he  very  freely  declares  his  opinion  that  the 
bill  which  had  passed  both  Houses  bc(jan  irilh  (in  entire  subver- 
sion of  every  one  of  the  compacts  by  which  the  United  Slates  became 
possessed  of  their  Vt'cstein  domain  ;  that  one  of  its  provisions  was 
in  direct  and  undisguised  violation  of  Hie  plcdyc  </ivcn  by  (\»i<ji'isx  to 
the  States  ;  that  the  Constitution  provides  that  these  compacts 
shall  be  untouched  by  the  legislative  power,  which  can  only 
make  needful  rules  and  regulations  ;  and  that  all  beyond  that  is 
au  assumption  cfundclcf/atcd  power. 

These  are  the  terms  in  which  the  President  speaks  of  an  Act 
of  the  two  Houses;  not  in  an  official  paper,  not  in  a  communi- 
cation which  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  make  to  them  ;  but  in 
a  message,  adopted  only  as  a  mode  through  which  to  make  pub- 
lic these  opinions.  After  this,  it  would  seem  too  late  to  enjoin 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.  435 

on  the  nouses  of  Congress  a  total  forbearance  from  all  com- 
ment  on  the  measures  of  the  executive. 

Xot  only  is  it  the  right  of  both  Houses,  or  of  either,  to  resist, 
by  vote,  declaration,  or  resolution,  whatever  it  may  deem  an 
encroachment  of  executive  power,  but  it  is  also  undoubtedly 
the  right  of  either  House  to  oppose,  in  like  manner,  any  encroach- 
ment by  the  other.  The  two  Houses  have  each  its  own  appro- 
priate powers  and  authorities,  which  it  is  bound  to  preserve. 
They  have,  too,  different  constituents.  The  members  of  the 
Senate  are  representatives  of  States ;  and  it  is  in  the  Senate 
alone  that  the  four-and-twenty  States,  as  political  bodies,  have 
a  direct  influence  in  the  legislative  and  executive  powers  of  this 
government.  He  is  a  strange  advocate  of  State  rights,  who 
maintains  that  this  body,  thus  representing  the  States,  and 
thus  being  the  strictly  federal  branch  of  the  legislature,  may 
not  assert  and  maintain,  all  and  singular,  its  own  powers  and 
privileges,  against  either  or  both  of  the  other  branches. 

If  any  thing  be  done  or  threatened  derogatory  to  the  rights  of 
the  States,  as  secured  by  the  organization  of  the  Senate,  may 
we  not  lift  up  our  voices  against  it?  Suppose  the  House  of 
Representatives  should  vote  that  the  Senate  ought  not  to  pro- 
pose amendments  to  revenue  bills  ;  would  it  be  the  duty  of  the 
Senate  to  take  no  notice  of  such  proceeding?  Or,  if  we  were 
to  see  the  President  issuing  commissions  to  office  to  person? 
who  had  never  been  nominated  to  the  Senate,  are  we  not  to 
remonstrate  ? 

Sir,  there  is  no  end  of  cases,  no  end  of  illustrations.  The 
doctrines  of  the  Protest,  in  this  respect,  cannot  stand  the 
slightest  scrutiny ;  they  are  blown  away  by  the  first  breath  of 
discussion. 

And  yet,  Sir,  it  is  easy  to  perceive  why  this  right  of  declaring 
its  sentiments  respecting  the  conduct  of  the  executive  is  denied 
to  either  House,  in  its  legislative  capacity.  It  is  merely  that 
the  Senate  might  be  presented  in  the  odious  light  of  trying  the 
President,  judicially,  without  regular  accusation  or  hearing. 
The  Protest  declares  that  the  President  is  charged  with  a  crime, 
and,  without  hearing  or  trial,  found  guilty  and  condemned.  This  is 
evidently  an  attempt  to  appeal  to  popular  feeling,  and  to  repre- 
sent the  President  as  unjustly  treated  and  unfairly  tried.  Sir, 
it  is  a  false  appeal.  The  President  has  not  been  tried  at  all ;  he 
has  not  been  accused  ;  he  has  not  been  charged  with  crime  ;  he 
has  not  been  condemned.  Accusation,  trial,  and  sentence  are 
terms  belonging  to  judicial  proceedings.  But  the  Senate  has 
1'ccn  engaged  in  no  such  proceeding.  The  resolution  of  the 
28th  of  March  was  not  an  exercise  of  judicial  power,  either  in 
form,  in  substance,  or  in  intent.  Everybody  knows  that  the 


436  WEBSTER. 

Senate  can  exercise  no  judicial  power  until  articles  of  impeach- 
ment are  brought  before  it.  It  is  then  to  proceed,  by  accusa- 
tion and  answer,  hearing,  trial,  and  judgment.  But  there  has 
been  no  impeachment,  no  answer,  no  hearing,  no  judgment. 
All  that  the  Senate  did  was  to  pass  a  resolution,  in  legislative 
form,  declaring  its  opinion  of  certain  acts  of  the  executive. 
This  resolution  imputed  no  crime  ;  it  charged  no  corrupt  mo- 
tive ;  it  proposed  no  punishment.  It  was  directed,  not  against 
the  President  personally,  but  against  the  act ;  and  that  act  it 
declared  to  be,  in  its  judgment,  an  assumption  of  authority  not 
warranted  by  the  Constitution. 

It  is  in  vain  that  the  Protest  attempts  to  shift  the  resolution 
to  the  judicial  character  of  the  Senate.  The  case  is  too  plain 
for  such  an  argument  to  be  plausible.  But,  in  order  to  lay 
some  foundation  for  it,  the  Protest,  as  I  have  already  said, 
contends  that  neither  the  Senate  nor  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives can  express  its  opinions  on  the  conduct  of  the  President, 
except  in  some  form  connected  with  impeachment ;  so  that,  if 
the  power  of  impeachment  did  not  exist,  these  two  Houses, 
though  they  be  representative  bodies,  though  one  of  them  be 
filled  by  the  immediate  representatives  of  the  people,  though 
they  be  constituted  like  other  popular  and  representative 
bodies,  could  not  utter  a  syllable,  although  they  saw  the-  execu- 
tive either  trampling  on  their  own  rights  and  privile:: 
grasping  at  absolute  authority  and  dominion  over  the  liberties 
of  the  country!  Sir,  I  hardly  know  how  to  speak  of  such  claims 
of  impunity  for  executive  encroachment.  I  am  amazed  that 
any  American  citizen  should  draw  up  a  paper  containing  such 
lofty  pretensions, —  pretensions  which  would  have  been  met 
with  scorn,  in  England,  at  any  time  since  the  Revolution  of 
1688.  A  man  who  should  stand  up,  in  cither  House  of  the 
British  Parliament,  to  maintain  that  the  House  could  not,  by 
vote  or  resolution,  maintain  its  own  rights  and  privileges, 
would  make  even  the  Tory  benches  hang  their  heads  lor  very 
shame. 

There  was  indeed  a  time  when  such  proceedings  were  not 
allowed.  Some  of  the  kings  of  the  Stuart  race  would  not  tol- 
erate them.  A  signal  instance  of  royal  displeasure  with  the 
proceedings  of  Parliament  occurred  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
reign  of  James  the  First.  The  House  of  Commons  had  spoken, 
on  some  occasion,  "of  its  own  undoubted  rights  and  privil. 
The  King  thereupon  sent  them  a  letter,  declaring  that  he  would 
not  allow  that  they  had  any  undoubted  /•<;//<  fx;  out  that  icftat  they 
enjoyed  they  might  still  hold  by  his  own  royal  </rar<.  and  jx.nni^l<>n. 
Sir  Edward  Coke  and  Mr.  Granville  were  not  satisfied  with  this 
title  to  their  privileges ;  and,  under  their  lead,  the  House 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  437 

entered  on  its  journals  a  resolution  asserting  its  privileges,  as 
its  own  undoubted  right,  and  manifesting  a  determination  to 
maintain  them  as  such.  This,  says  the  historian,  so  enraged 
his  Majesty,  that  he  sent  for  the  journal,  had  it  brought  into 
the  Council,  and  there,  in  the  presence  of  his  lords  and  great 
officers  of  State,  tore  out  the  offensive  resolution  with  his  own 
royal  hand.  He  then  dissolved  Parliament,  and  sent  its  most 
refractory  members  to  the  Tower.  I  have  no  fear,  certainly, 
Sir,  that  this  English  example  will  be  followed,  on  this  occa- 
sion, to  its  full  extent ;  nor  would  I  insinuate  that  any  thing 
outrageous  has  been  thought  of,  or  intended,  except  outrageous 
pretensions  ;  but  such  pretensions  I  must  impute  to  the  author 
of  this  Protest,  whoever  that  author  may  be. 

When  this  and  the  other  House  shall  lose  the  freedom  of 
speech  and  debate  ;  when  they  shall  surrender  the  rights  of 
publicly  and  freely  canvassing  all  important  measures  of  the 
executive  ;  when  they  shall  not  be  allowed  to  maintain  their 
own  authority  and  their  own  privileges  by  vote,  declaration,  or 
resolution,— they  will  then  be  no  longer  free,  representatives 
of  a  free  people,  but  slaves  themselves,  and  fit  instruments  to 
make  slaves  of  others. 

The  Protest,  Mr.  President,  concedes  what  it  doubtless  re- 
gards as  a  liberal  right  of  discussion  to  the  people  themselves. 
But  its  language,  even  in  acknowledging  this  right  of  the  people 
to  discuss  the  conduct  of  their  servants,  is  qualified  and  pecul- 
iar. The  free  people  of  the  United  States,  it  declares,  have  an 
undoubted  right  to  discuss  the  official  conduct  of  the  President, 
in  such  language  and  form  as  they  may  think  proper,  "subject 
only  to  the  restraints  of  truth  and  justice."  But,  then,  who  is 
to  be  judge  of  this  truth  and  justice  ?  Are  the  people  to  judge 
for  themselves,  or  are  others  to  judge  for  them?  The  Protest 
is  here  speaking  of  political  rights,  and  not  moral  rights  ;  and  if 
ints  are  imposed  on  political  rights,  it  must  follow,  of 
course,  that  others  are  to  decide  whenever  the  case  arises 
whether  these  restraints  have  been  violated.  It  is  strange  that 
the  writer  of  the  Protest  did  not  perceive  that,  by  using  this 
language,  he  was  pushing  tlie  President  into  a  direct  avowal  of 
the  doctrines  of  1798.8  The  text  of  the  Protest  and  the  text  of 
the  obnoxious  Act  of  that  year  are  nearly  identical. 

But,  Sir,  if  the  people  have  a  right  to  discuss  the  official  con- 
duct of  the  executive,  so  have  their  representatives.  We  have 
been  taught  to  regard  a  representative  of  the  people  as  a  senti- 

8  The  allusion  is  to  what  is  known  in  history  as  the  Sedition  Act,  which  was 
odious  to  tho  people  Tor  the  very  reason  that  it  laid  restrictions  oil  freedom  of 
speech  in  regard  to  tho  doiugs  of  the  government. 


438  WEBSTER. 

nel  on  the  watch-tower  of  liberty.  Is  he  to  be  blind,  though 
visible  danger  approaches?  Is  he  to  be  deaf,  though  sounds  of 
peril  Jill  the  air?  Is  he  to  be  dumb,  while  a  thousand  duties 
impel  him  to  raise  the  cry  of  alarm?  Is  he  not,  rather,  to  catch 
the  lowest  whisper  which  breathes  intention  or  purpose  of 
encroachment  on  the  public  liberties,  and  to  give  his  voice 
breath  and  utterance  at  the  first  appearance  of  danger?  Is  not 
his  eye  to  traverse  the  whole  horizon  with  the  keen  and  eager 
vision  of  an  unhooded  hawk,9  detecting,  through  all  disguises, 
every  enemy  advancing,  in  any  form,  towards  the  citadel  which 
he  guards?  Sir,  this  watchfulness  for  public  liberty  ;  this  duty 
of  foreseeing  danger  and  proclaiming  it;  this  promptitude  and 
boldness  in  resisting  attacks  on  tho  Constitution  from  any 
quarter;  this  defence  of  established  landmarks;  this  fearless 
resistance  of  whatever  would  transcend  or  remove  them,— all 
belong  to  the  representative  character,  are  interwoven  with  its 
very  nature.  If  deprived  of  them,  an  active,  intelligent,  faith- 
ful agent  of  the  people  will  be  converted  into  an  unresisting  and 
passive  instrument  of  power.  A  representative  body,  which 
gives  up  these  rights  and  duties,  gives  itself  up.  It  is  a  repre- 
sentative body  no  longer.  It  has  broken  the  tie  between 
and  its  constituents,  and  henceforth  is  tit  only  to  be  regarded  as 
an  inert,  self-sacriiicad  mass,  from  which  all  appropriate'  prin- 
ciple of  vitality  has  departed  for  ever. 

1  have  thus  endeavoured  to  vindicate  the  right  of  the  Senate 
to  pass  the  resolution  of  the  28th  of  March,  notwithstanding 
the  denial  of  that  right  in  the  Protest. 

But  there  are  other  sentiments  and  opinions  expressed  in  the 
Protest,  of  the  very  highest  importance,  and  which  demand 
nothing  less  than  our  utmost  attention. 

The  first  object  of  a  free  people  is  the  preservation  of  their 
liberty ;  and  liberty  is  only  to  be  preserved  by  maintaining 
constitutional  restraints  and  just  divisions  of  political  power. 
Nothing  is  more  deceptive  or  more  dangerous  than  the  pre- 
tence of  a  desire  to  simplify  government.  The  simplest  gov- 
ernments are  despotisms ;  the  next  simplest,  limited  mon- 
archies; but  all  republics,  all  governments  of  law,  must  impose. 
numerous  limitations  and  qualifications  of  authority,  and  give 
many  positive  and  many  qualified  rights.  In  other  words,  they 
must  be  subject  to  rule  and  regulation.  This  is  the  very  essence 
of  free  political  institutions.  The  spirit  of  liberty  is  indeed  a 
bold  and  fearless  spirit;  but  it  is  also  a  sharp-sighted  spirit ; 
it  is  a  cautious,  sagacious,  discriminating,  far-seeing  intelli- 

9  A  reference  to  the  old  sport  of  falconry.  A  cap  or  hood  was  often  drawn 
over  the  hawk's  head  for  the  purpose  of  blinding  it. 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.  439 

gence ;  it  is  jealous  of  encroachment,  jealous  of  power,  jealous 
of  man.  It  demands  checks  ;  it  seeks  for  guards ;  it  insists 
on  securities ;  it  intrenches  itself  behind  strong  defences,  and 
fortifies  itself  with  all  possible  care  against  the  assaults  of 
ambition  and  passion.  It  does  not  trust  the  amiable  weak- 
nesses of  human  nature,  and  therefore  it  will  not  permit  power 
to  overstep  its  prescribed  limits,  though  benevolence,  good 
intent,  and  patriotic  purpose  come  along  with  it.  Neither  does 
it  satisfy  itself  with  flashy  and  temporary  resistance  to  illegal 
authority.  Far  otherwise.  It  seeks  for  duration  and  perma- 
nence. It  looks  before  and  after ;  and,  building  on  the  experi- 
ence of  ages  which  are  past,  it  labours  diligently  for  the  benefit 
of  ages  to  come.  This  is  the  nature  of  constitutional  liberty ; 
and  this  is  our  liberty,  if  we  will  rightly  understand  and  pre- 
serve it.  Every  free  government  is  necessarily  complicated, 
because  all  such  governments  establish  restraints,  as  well  on 
the  power  of  government  itself  as  on  that  of  individuals.  If  we 
will  abolish  the  distinction  of  branches,  and  have  but  one 
branch ;  if  we  will  abolish  jury  trials,  and  leave  all  to  the 
judge ;  if  we  will  then  ordain  that  the  legislator  shall  himself 
be  that  judge ;  and  if  wo  will  place  the  executive  power  in  the 
same  hands, — we  may  readily  simplify  government.  We  may 
easily  bring  it  to  the  simplest  of  all  possible  forms. — a  pure 
despotism.  But  a  separation  of  departments,  so  far  as  practi- 
cable, and  the  preservation  of  clear  lines  of  division  between 
them,  is  the  fundamental  idea  in  the  creation  of  all  our  consti- 
tutions ;  and  doubtless  the  continuance  of  regulated  liberty 
depends  on  maintaining  these  boundaries. 

Jn  the  progress,  Sir,  of  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
we  seem  exposed  to  two  classes  of  dangers  or  disturbances ; 
one  external,  the  other  internal.  It  may  happen  that  collisions 
arise  between  this  government  and  the  governments  of  the 
States.  That  case  belongs  to  the  first  class.  A  memorable 
instance  of  this  existed  last  year.  It  was  my  conscientious 
opinion,  on  that  occasion,  that  the  authority  claimed  by  an 
individual  State  was  subversive  of  the  just  powers  of  this 
government,  and  indeed  incompatible  with  its  existence.  I 
gave  a  hearty  cooperation,  therefore,  to  measures  which  the 
crisis  seemed  to  require.  We  have  now  before  us  what  up- 
1>« -ars,  to  my  judgment,  to  be  an  instance  of  the  latter  kind.  A 
contest  has  arisen  between  different  branches  of  the  same 
government,  interrupting  their  harmony,  and  threatening  to 
disturb  their  balance.  It  is  of  the  highest  importance,  there- 
fore, to  examine  the  question  carefully,  and  to  decide  it  justly. 

Tho  separation  of  the  powers  of  government  into  three  depart- 
ments, though  all  our  constitutions  profess  to  be  founded  on  it. 


440  WEBSTER. 

has  nevertheless  never  been  perfectly  established  in  any  govern- 
ment of  the  world,  and  perhaps  never  can  be.  The  general  prin- 
ciple is  of  inestimable  value,  and  the  leading  lines  of  distinction 
sufficiently  plain ;  yet  there  are  powers  of  so  undecided  a  char- 
acter, that  they  do  not  seem  necessarily  to  range  themselves 
under  either  head.  And  most  of  our  constitutions,  too,  having 
laid  down  the  general  principle,  immediately  create  exceptions. 
There  do  not  exist,  in  the  general  science  of  government,  or 
the  received  maxims  of  political  law,  such  precise  definitions  as 
enable  us  always  to  say  of  a  given  power  whether  it  he  legisla- 
tive, executive,  or  judicial.  And  this  is  one  reason,  doubtless, 
why  the  Constitution,  in  conferring  power  on  all  the  depart- 
ments, proceeds  not  by  general  definition,  but  by  specific  enu- 
meration. And,  again,  it  grants  a  power  in  general  terms,  but 
yet,  in  the  same,  or  some  other  article  or  section,  imposes  a  lim- 
itation or  qualification  on  the  grant;  and  the  grant  and  the  lim- 
itation must  of  course  be  construed  together.  Thus  thi 
stitution  says  that  all  legislative  power,  therein  granted,  shall  be 
vested  in  Congress,  which  Congress  shall  consist  of  a  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives  ;  and  yet,  in  another  article,  it  gives 
to  the  President  a  qualified  negative  over  all  Acts  of  Co; 
So  the  Constitution  declares  that  the  judicial  power  shall  be 
vested  in  one  Supreme  Court,  and  sucli  inferior  courts  as  Con- 
gress may  establish.  It  gives,  nevertheless,  in  another  provision, 
judicial  power  to  the  Senate  ;  and,  in  like  manner,  though  it 
declares  that  the  executive  power  shall  be  vested  in  the  PIVM- 
dent,  using,  in  the  immediate  context,  no  words  of  limitation, 
yet  it  elsewhere  subjects  the  treaty-making  power,  and  the  aj>- 
pointing  power,  to  the  concurrence  of  the  Senate.  The  ir 
ible  inference  from  these  considerations  is,  that  the  mere 
nomination  of  a  department,  as  one  of  the  three  great  and 
commonly-acknowledged  departments  of  government,  does  not 
confer  on  that  department  any  power  at  all.  Notwithstanding 
the  departments  are  called  the  legislative,  the  executive,  and 
the  judicial,  we  must  yet  look  into  the  provisions  of  the  Consti- 
tution itself,  in  order  to  learn,  first,  what  powers  the  Constitu- 
tion regards  as  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial ;  and,  in  the 
next  place,  what  portions  or  quantities  of  these  powers  are  con- 
ferred on  the  respective  departments ;  because  no  one  will 
contend  that  all  legislative  power  belongs  to  Congress,  all  ex- 
ecutive power  to  the  President,  or  all  judicial  power  to  the 
courts  of  the  United  States. 

The  first  three  articles  of  the  Constitution,  as  all  know,  are 
employed  in  prescribing  the  organization,  and  enumerating  the 
powers,  of  the  three  departments.  The  first  article  treats  ot 
the  legislature,  and  its  first  section  is,  "All  legislative  power, 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.  441 

herein  granted,  shall  be  vested  in  a  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  which  shall  consist  of  a  Senate  and  House  of  Represent- 
atives." The  second  article  treats  of  the  executive  power,  and 
its  first  section  declares  that  "the  executive  power  shall  be 
vested  in  a  President  of  the  United  States  of  America."  The 
third  article  treats  of  the  judicial  power,  and  its  first  section 
declares  that  "the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  be 
vested  in  one  Supreme  Court,  and  in  such  inferior  courts  as  the 
Congress  may,  from  time  to  time,  ordain  and  establish." 

It  is  too  plain  to  be  doubted,  I  think,  Sir,  that  these  descrip- 
tions of  the  persons  or  officers  in  whom  the  executive  and  the 
judicial  powers  are  to  be  vested  no  more  define  the  extent  of 
the  grant  of  those  powers,  than  the  words  quoted  from  the  first 
article  describe  the  extent  of  the  legislative  grant  to  Congress. 
All  these  several  titles,  heads  of  articles,  or  introductory 
clauses,  with  the  general  declarations  which  they  contain,  serve 
to  designate  the  departments,  and  to  mark  the  general  distribu- 
tion of  powers  ;  but  in  all  the  departments,  in  the  executive  and 
judicial  as  well  as  in  the  legislative,  it  would  be  unsafe  to  con- 
tend for  any  specific  power  under  such  clauses. 

If  we  look  into  the  State  Constitutions,  we  shall  find  the  line 
of  distinction  between  the  departments  still  less  perfectly 
drawn,  although  the  general  principle  of  the  distinction  is  laid 
down  in  most  of  them,  and  in  some  of  them  in  very  positive  and 
emphatic  terms.  In  some  of  these  States,  notwithstanding  the 
principle  of  distribution  is  adopted  and  sanctioned,  the  legisla- 
ture appoints  the  judges  ;  and  in  others  it  appoints  both  the 
governor  and  the  judges  ;  and  in  others,  again,  it  appoints  not 
only  the  judges,  but  all  other  officers. 

The  inferences  which,  I  think,  follow  from  these  views  of  the 
subject,  are  two:  First,  that  the  denomination  of  a  department 
docs  not  fix  the  limits  of  the  powers  conferred  on  it,  nor  even 
their  c-xact  nature  ;  and,  second,  (which  indeed  follows  from  the 
first,)  that,  in 'our  American  governments,  the  chief  executive 
magistrate  does  not  necessarily,  and  by  force  of  his  general 
character  of  supreme  executive,  possess  the  appointing  power. 
JIc  may  have  it,  or  he  may  not,  according  to  the  particular  pro- 
visions applicable  to  each  case  in  the  respective  Constitutions. 

The  President  appears  to  have  taken  a  different  view  of  this 
subject.  He  seems  to  regard  the  appointing  power  as  originally 
and  inherently  in  the  executive,  and  as  remaining  absolute  in 
his  hands,  except  so  far  as  the  Constitution  restrains  it.  This  I 
do  not  agree  to,  and  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  examine 
the  question  further.  I  have  intended  thus  far  only  to  insist 
on  tin;  high  and  indispensable  duty  of  maintaining  the  division 
of  power  us  the  Constitution  has  marked  that  division  out,  and  to 


442  WEBSTER. 

oppose  claims  of  authority  not  founded  on  express  grants  or 
necessary  implication,  but  sustained  merely  by  argument  or 
inference  from  names  or  denominations  given  to  departments. 

Mr.  President,  the  resolutions  now  before  us  declare  that  the 
Protest  asserts  powers  as  belonging  to  the  President  incon- 
sistent with  the  authority  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  and 
inconsistent  with  the  Constitution  ;  and  that  the  Protest  itself 
is  a  breach  of  privilege.  I  believe  all  this  to  be  true. 

The  doctrines  of  the  Protest  are  inconsistent  with  the  au- 
thority of  the  two  Houses,  because,  in  my  judgment*  they  deny 
the  just  extent  of  the  law-making  power.  I  take  the  Protest  as 
it  was  sent  to  us,  without  inquiring  how  far  the  subsequent 
message  has  modified  or  explained  it.  It  is  singular  indeed, 
that  a  paper,  so  long  in  preparation,  so  elaborate  in  composi- 
tion, and  which  is  put  forth  for  so  high  a  purpose  as  the  Pro- 
tost  avows,  should  not  be  able  to  stand  an  hour's  discussion, 
before  it  became  evident  that  it  was  indispensably  nec< 
to  alter  or  explain  its  contents.  Explained  or  unexplained, 
lunvever,  the  paper  contains  sentiments  which  justify  u 
think,  in  adopting  these  resolutions. 

In  the  first  place,  I  think  the  Protest  a  clear  breach  of  priv- 
ilege. It  is  a  reproof  or  rebuke  of  the  Senate,  in  language 
hardly  respectful,  for  the  exercise  of  a  power  clearly  belonging 
to  it  as  a  legislative  body.  It  entirely  misrepresents  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Senate.  I  find  this  paragraph  in  it,  among 
others  of  a  similar  tone  and  character:  "A  majority  of  the 
Senate,  whose  interference  with  the  preliminary  question  has, 
for  the  best  of  all  reasons,  been  studiously  excluded,  anticipate 
the  action  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  assume  not  only 
the  function  which  belongs  exclusively  to  that  body,  but  con- 
vert themselves  into  accusers,  witnesses,  counsel,  and  judges, 
and  prejudge  the  whole  case ;  thus  presenting  the  appalling 
spectacle,  in  a  free  State,  of  judges  going  through  a  laboured 
preparation  for  an  impartial  hearing  and  decision,  by  a  pre- 
vious ex  parte  investigation  and  sentence  against  the  supposed 
offender." 

Xo\v,  Sir,  this  paragraph,  I  am  bound  to  say,  is  a  total  mis- 
representation of  the  proceedings  of  the  Senate.  A  majority  of 
the  Senate  have  not  anticipated  the  House  of  Representatives  ; 
they  have  not  assumed  the  functions  of  that  body  ;  they  have 
not  converted  themselves  into  accusers,  witnesses,  counsel,  or 
judges  ;  they  have  made  no  ex  parte  investigation ;  they  have 
given  no  sentence.  This  paragraph  is  an  elaborate  perversion 
of  the  whole  design  and  the  whole  proceedings  of  the  Senate. 
A  Protest,  sent  to  us  by  the  President,  against  votes  which  the 
Senate  has  an  unquestionable  right  to  pass,  and  containing,  too, 


TUE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  443 

sucli  a  misrepresentation  of  these  votes  as  this  paragraph  mani- 
fests, is  a  breach  of  privilege. 

But  there  is  another  breach  of  privilege.  The  President 
interferes  between  the  members  of  the  Senate  and  their  con- 
stituents, and  charges  them  with  acting  contrary  to  the  will  of 
those  constituents.  He  says  it  is  his  right  and  duty  to  look  to 
the  journals  of  the  Senate  to  ascertain  who  voted  for  the 
resolution  of  the  28th  of  March,  and  then  to  show  that  indi- 
vidual Senators  have,  by  their  votes  on  that  resolution,  diso- 
beyed the  instructions  or  violated  the  known  will  of  the  legisla- 
tures who  appointed  them.  All  this  he  claims  as  his  right  and 
his  duty.  And  where  does  he  find  any  such  right  or  any  such 
duty?  What  right  has  he  to  send  a  message  to  either  House 
of  Congress,  telling  its  members  that  they  disobey  the  will  of 
their  constituents?  Has  any  English  sovereign  since  Crom- 
well's time  dared  to  send  such  a  message  to  Parliament?  Sir, 
if  he  can  tell  us  that  some  of  us  disobey  our  constituents,  he 
can  tell  us  that  all  do  so  ;  and  if  we  consent  to  receive  this  lan- 
guage from  him,  there  is  but  one  remaining  step  ;  and  that  is, 
that,  since  we  thus  disobey  the  will  of  our  constituents,  he 
should  disperse  us  and  send  us  home.  In  my  opinion,  the  first 
step  in  this  process  is  as  distinct  a  breach  of  privilege  as  the 
l.'i.st.  If  Cromwell's  examples  shall  be  followed  out,  it  will  not 
be  more  clear  then  than  it  is  now  that  the  privileges  of  the 
Senate  have  been  violated.  There  is  yet  something,  Sir,  which 
surpasses  all  this  ;  and  that  is,  that,  after  this  direct  interfer- 
ence, after  pointing  out  those  Senators  whom  he  would  repre- 
sent as  having  disobeyed  the  known  will  of  their  constituents, 
he  (HsrliiiiiH*  fill  ilfxir/n  nf  interfering  ai  alii  Sir,  who  could  be 
the  writer  of  a  message,  which,  in  the  iirst  place,  makes  the 
President  assert  such  monstrous  pretensions,  and,  in  the  next 
lino,  affront  the  understanding  of  the  Senate  by  disavowing  all 
right  to  do  that  very  thing  which  he  is  doing  ?  If  there  be  any 
thing,  Sir,  in  this  message,  more  likely  than  the  rest  of  it  to 
move  one  from  his  equanimity,  it  is  this  disclaimer  of  all  design 
to  interfere  with  the  responsibility  of  members  of  the  Senate 
to  their  constituents,  after  such  interference  had  already  been 
made,  in  the  same  paper,  in  the  most  objectionable  and  offen- 
sive form.  If  it  were  not  for  the  purpose  of  telling  these  Sen- 
ators that  they  disobeyed  the  will  of  the  legislatures  of  the 
i  they  represent,  for  what  purpose  was  it  that  the  Protest 
has  pointed  out  the  four  Senators,  and  paraded  against  them 
the  sentiments  of  their  legislatures?  There  can  be  no  other 
purpose.  The  Protest  says  indeed,  that  "these  facts  belong  to 
the  history  of  these  proceedings"  I  To  the  history  of  what 
proceedings  ?  To  any  proceeding  to  which  the  President  was 


444  WEBSTER. 

party?  To  any  proceeding  to  which  the  Senate  was  party? 
Have  they  any  thing  to  do  with  the  resolution  of  the  28th  of 
March?  But  it  adds,  that  these  facts  are  important  to  the  just 
development  rf  the  principZef  and  interests  inrolred  in  tlic  pr<- 
ings.  All  this  might  be  said  of  any  other  facts.  It  is  mere 
words.  To  what  principles,  to  what  interests,  are  these  facts 
important?  They  cannot  be  important  but  in  one  point  of  view  ; 
and  that  is  as  proof,  or  evidence,  that  the  Senators  have  diso- 
beyed instructions,  or  acted  against  the  known  will  of  their 
constituents,  in  disapproving  the  President's  conduct.  They 
have  not  the  slightest  bearing  in  any  other  way.  They  do  not 
make  the  resolution  of  the  Senate  more  or  less  true,  nor  its 
right  to  pass  it  more  or  less  clear.  Sir,  these  proceedings  of  the 
legislatures  were  introduced  into  this  Protest  for  the  very  pur- 
pose, and  no  other,  of  showing  that  members  of  the  Senate  have 
acted  contrary  to  the  will  of  their  constituents.  Every  man 
sees  and  knows  this  to  have  been  the  sole  design ;  and  any 
other  pretence  is  a  mockery  to  our  understandings.  And  this 
purpose  is,  in  my  opinion,  an  unlawful  purpose  ;  it  is  an  unjus- 
tifiable intervention  between  us  and  our  constituents ;  and  is 
therefore  a  manifest  and  llagrant  breach  of  privile: 

In  the  next  place,  the  assertions  of  the  Protest  are  inconsist- 
ent with  the  just  authority  of  Congress,  because  they  claim  for 
the  President  a  power,  independent  of  Congress,  to  possess  the 
custody  and  control  of  the  public  treasures.  Let  this  point  be 
accurately  examined ;  and,  in  order  to  avoid  mistake,  I  will 
read  the  precise  words  of  the  Protest : 

"The  custody  of  the  public  property,  under  such  regulations 
as  may  be  prescribed  by  legislative  authority,  has  always  been 
considered  an  appropriate  function  of  the  executive  department 
in  this  and  all  other  governments.  In  accordance  with  this 
principle,  every  species  of  property  belonging  to  the  United 
States  (excepting  that  which  is  in  the  use  of  the  several  coordi- 
nate departments  of  the  government,  as  means  to  aid  them  in 
performing  their  appropriate  functions)  is  in  charge  of  olluvrs 
appointed  by  the  President,  whether  it  be  lands,  or  buildings,  or 
merchandise,  or  provisions,  or  clothing,  or  arms  and  munitions 
of  war.  The  superintendents  and  keepers  of  the  whole  are  ap- 
pointed by  the  President^  and  removable  at  his  will. 

"Public  money  is  but  a  species  of  public  property.  It  cannot 
be  raised  by  taxation  or  customs,  nor  brought  into  the  treasury 
in  any  other  way  except  by  law  ;  but,  whenever  or  howsoever 
obtained,  its  custody  always  has  been,  and  always  must  be,  un- 
less the  Constitution  be  changed,  intrusted  to  the  executive 
department.  No  officer  can  be  created  by  Congress,  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  charge  of  it,  whose  appointment  would  not, 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  445 

by  the  Constitution,  at  once  devolve  on  the  President,  and  who 
would  not  be  responsible  to  him  for  the  faithful  performance  of 
his  duties." 

And,  in  another  place,  it  declares  that  "Congress  cannot, 
therefore,  take  out  of  the  hands  of  the  executive  department 
the  custody  of  the  public  property  or  money,  without  an  as- 
sumption of  executive  power,  and  a  subversion  of  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  the  Constitution."  These,  Sir,  are  propositions  which 
cannot  receive  too  much  attention.  They  affirm  that  the  custody 
of  the  public  money  constitutionally  and  necessarily  belongs  to 
the  executive  ;  and  that,  until  the  Constitution  is  changed,  Con- 
gress cannot  take  it  out  of  his  hands,  nor  make  any  provision 
for  its  custody,  except  by  such  superintendents  and  keepers  as 
are  appointed  by  the  President,  and  removable  at  his  will.  If 
these  assertions  be  correct,  we  have  indeed  a  singular  Constitu- 
tion for  a  republican  government ;  for  we  give  the  executive 
the  control,  the  custody,  and  the  possession  of  the  public  treas- 
ury, by  original  constitutional  provision ;  and  when  Congress 
appropriates,  it  appropriates  only  what  is  already  in  the  Presi- 
dent's hands. 

Sir,  T  hold  these  propositions  to  be  sound  in  neither  branch. 
I  maintain  that  the  custody  of  the  public  money  does  not  neces- 
sarily belong  to  the  executive,  under  this  government;  and  I 
hold  that  Congress  may  so  dispose  of  it,  that  it  shall  bo  under 
the  superintendence  of  keepers  not  appointed  by  the  President, 
nor  removable  at  his  will.  I  think  it  competent  for  Congress  to 
declare,  as  Congress  did  declare  in  the  bank  charter,  that  the 
public  deposits  should  be  made  in  the  bank.  When  in  the 
bank,  they  were  not  kept  by  persons  appointed  by  the  Presi- 
dent, or  removable  at  his  will.  He  could  not  change  that  cus- 
tody ;  nor  could  it  be  changed  at  all,  but  according  to  provisions 
made  in  the  law  itself.  There  was  indeed  a  provision  in  the, 
law  authorizing  the  Secretary  to  change  the  custody.  But  sup- 
pose there  had  been  no  such  provision  ;  suppose  the  contingent 
power  had  not  been  given  to  the  Secretary  ;  would  it  not  have 
been  a  lawful  enactment?  Might  not  the  law  have  provided 
that  the  public  moneys  should  remain  in  the  bank,  until  Con- 
it  self  should  otherwise  order,  leaving  no  power  of  removal 
anywhere  else?  And  if  such  provision  had  been  made,  what 
power,  or  custody,  or  control,  would  the  President  have  pos- 
i  over  them  ?  Clearly,  none  at  all.  The  Act  of  May,  1800, 
directed  custom-house  bonds,  in  places  where  the  bank  which 
was  then  in  existence  was  situated,  or  where  it  had  branches,  to 
be  deposited  in  the  bank  or  its  branches  for  collection,  without 
the  reservation  of  any  power  of  removal  to  the  Secretary  or  any- 
body else.  How,  Sir,  this  was  an  unconstitutional  law,  if  the 


446  AYEBSTEE. 

Protest,  in  the  part  now  under  consideration,  be  correct;  be- 
cause it  placed  the  public  money  in  a  custody  beyond  the  con- 
trol of  the  President,  and  in  hands  of  keepers  not  appointed  bv 
him,  nor  removable  at  his  pleasure.  One  may  readily  discern, 
Sir,  the  process  of  reasoning  by  which  the  author  of  the  Protest 
brought  himself  to  the  conclusion  that  Congress  could  not 
place  the  public  moneys  beyond  the  President's  control.  It 
is  all  founded  on  the  power  of  appointment  and  the  power  of 
removal.  These  powers,  it  is  supposed,  must  give  the  President 
complete  control  and  authority  over  those  who  actually  hold 
the  money,  and  therefore  must  necessarily  subject  its  custody, 
at  all  times,  to  his  own  individual  will.  This  is  the  argument. 

It  is  true,  that  the  appointment  of  all  public  oflicers,  with 
some  exceptions,  is,  by  the  Constitution,  given  to  the  President, 
with  the  consent  of  the  Senate;  and  as,  in  most  cases,  public 
property  must  be  held  by  some  officer,  its  keepers  will  generally 
be  persons  so  appointed.  But  this  is  only  the  common,  not  a 
necessary  consequence  of  giving  the  appointing  power  to  the 
President  and  Senate.  Congress  may  still,  if  it  shall  so  see  lit, 
place  the  public  treasure  in  the  hand  of  no  oflirer  appointed  by 
the  President,  or  removable  by  him,  but  in  hands  quite  beyond 
his  control.  Subject  to  one  contingency  only,  it  did  this  very 
thing  by  the  charter  of  the  present  bank;  and  it  did  the  same 
thing  absolutely,  and  subject  to  no  contingency,  by  tbe  law  of 
1800.  The  Protest,  in  the  first  place,  seizes  on  the  fact  that  all 
otlicers  must  be  appointed  by  the  President,  or  on  his  nomina- 
tion ;  it  then  assumes  the  next  step,  that  all  oflicers  are,  and 
must  be,  removable  at  his  pleasure;  and  then,  insisting  that 
public  money,  like  other  public  property,  must  be  kept  by  some 
public  officer,  it  thus  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  it  must  always 
be  in  the  hands  of  those  who  are  appointed  by  the  President, 
and  who  are  removable  at  his  pleasure.  And  it  is  very  clear 
that  the  Protest  means  to  maintain  that  the  tenure  of  office  cannot 
be  so  regulated  by  law,  as  that  public  officers  shall  not  be  removable 
at  the  pleasure  rf  the  President. 

The  President  considers  the  right  of  removal  as  a  fixed, 
vested,  constitutional  right,  which  Congress  cannot  limit,  con- 
trol, or  qualify,  until  the  Constitution  shall  be  altered.  This, 
Sir,  is  doctrine  which  I  am  not  prepared  to  admit.  I  shall  not 
now  discuss  the  question  whether  the  law  may  not  place  the 
tenure  of  office  beyond  the  reach  of  executive  pleasure  ;  but  I 
wish  merely  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  Senate  to  the  fact  that 
any  such  power  in  Congress  is  denied  by  the  principles  and  by 
thc  words  of  the  Protest.  According  to  that  paper,  we  live 
under  a  Constitution  by  the  provisions  of  which  the  public 
treasures  are,  necessarily  and  unavoidably,  always  under  execu- 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.    '  447 

tive  control ;  and  as  the  executive  may  re  move  .all  officers,  and 
appoint  others,  at  least  temporarily,  without  the  concurrence  of 
the  Senate,  he  may  hold  those  treasures,  in  the  hands  of  per- 
sons appointed  by  himself  alone,  in  defiance  of  any  law  which 
Congress  has  passed  or  can  pass.  It  is  to  be  seen,  Sir,  how  far 
such  claims  of  power  will  receive  the  approbation  of  the  coun- 
try. It  is  to  be  seen  whether  a  construction  will  be  readily 
adopted  which  thus  places  the  public  purse  out  of  the  guardian- 
ship of  the  immediate  representatives  of  the  people. 

But,  Sir,  there  is,  in  this  paper,  something  even  yet  more 
strange  than  these  extraordinary  claims  of  power.  "There  is  a 
strong  disposition,  running  through  the  whole  Protest,  to  repre- 
sent the  executive  department  of  this  government  as  the  pecul- 
iar protector  of  the  public  liberty,  the  chief  security  on  which 
the  people  are  to  rely  against  the  encroachment  of  other 
branches  of  the  government.  Nothing  can  be  more  manifest 
than  this  purpose.  To  this  end,  the  Protest  spreads  out  the 
President's  official  oath,  reciting  all  its  words  in  a  formal  quota- 
tion ;  and  yet  the  oath  of  members  of  Congress  is  exactly  equiv- 
alent. The  President  is  to  swear  that  he  will  "preserve,  pro- 
tect, and  defend  the  Constitution  ; "  and  members  of  Congress 
are  to  swear  that  they  will  "  support  the  Constitution."  There 
are  more  words  in  one  oath  than  the  other,  but  the  sense  is  pre- 
cisely the  same.  Why,  then,  this  reference  to  his  official  oath, 
and  this  ostentatious  quotation  of  it  ?  Would  the  writer  of  the 
Protest  argue  that  the  oath  itself  is  any  grant  of  power ;  or 
that,  because  the  President  is  to  "preserve,  protect,  and  defend 
the  Constitution,"  he  is  therefore  to  use  what  means  he  pleases, 
or  any  means,  for  such  preservation,  protection,  and  defence, 
except  those  which  the  Constitution  and  laws  have  specifically 
given  him?  Such  an  argument  would  be  absurd;  but  if  the 
oath  be  not  cited  for  this  preposterous  purpose,  with  what  de- 
sign is  it  thus  displayed  on  the  face  of  the  Protest,  unless  it  be 
to  support  the  general  idea  that  the  maintenance  of  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  preservation  of  the  public  liberties  are  especially 
confided  to  the  safe  discretion,  the  sure  moderation,  the  pater- 
nal guard ianship  of  executive  power?  The  oath  of  the  Presi- 
dent contains  three  words,  all  of  equal  import ;  that  is,  that  he 
will  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution.  The  oath  of 
members  of  Congress  is  expressed  in  shorter  phrase  ;  it  is,  that 
they  will  support  the  Constitution.  If  there  be  any  difference 
in  the  meaning  of  the  two  oaths,  I  cannot  discern  it ;  and  yet 
the  Protest  solemnly  and  formally  argues  thus:  "The  duty  of 
defending,  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  the  integrity  of  the  Constitution 
would  indeed  have  resulted  from  the  very  nature  of  his  office  ; 
but,  by  thus  expressing  it  in  the  official  oath  or  affirmation, 


448  WEBSTER. 

which,  in  this  respect,  differs  from  that  of  every  other  func- 
tionary, the  founders  of  our  republic  have  attested  their 
of  its  importance,  and  have  given  to  it  a  peculiar  solemnity  and 
force." 

Sir,  I  deny  the  proposition,  and  I  dispute  the  proof.  I  deny 
that  the  duty  of  defending  the  integrity  of  the  Constitution  is, 
in  any  peculiar  sense,  confided  to  the  President;  and  I  deny 
that  the  words  of  his  oath  furnish  any  argument  to  make  good 
that  proposition.  Be  pleased,  Sir,  to  remember  against  whom  it 
is  that  the  President  holds  it  his  peculiar  duty  to  defend  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Constitution.  It  is  not  against  external  foi- 
ls not  against  a  foreign  foe  ;  no  such  thing  :  lut  it  in  wjainst  the 
representatives  of  the  people  and  the  representatives  of  the  >^ 
It  is  against  these  that  the  founders  of  our  republic  have  im- 
posed on  him  the  duty  of  defending  the  integrity  of  the  Consti- 
tution ;  a  duty,  he  says,  of  the  importance  of  which  they  have 
attested  their  sense,  and  to  which  they  have  given  peculiar  so- 
lemnity  and  force,  by  expressing  it  in  his  official  oath  ! 

Let  us  pause,  Sir,  and  consider  this  most  strange  proposition. 
The  President  is  the  chief  executive  magistrate.  Ho  is  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy ;  nominates  all  persons 
to  oilice  ;  claims  a  right  to  remove  all  at  will,  and  to  control  all 
while  yet  in  office  ;  dispenses  all  favours  ;  and  wields  the  whole 
patronage  of  the  government.  And  the  proposition  is,  that  the 
duty  of  defending  the  integrity  of  the  Constitution  against  the 
representatives  of  the  States,  and  against  the  represents  i 
the  people,  results  to  him  from  the  very  nature  of  his  office  ;  and 
that  the  founders  of  our  republic  have  given  to  this  duty,  thus 
confided  to  him,  peculiar  solemnity  and  force  I 

Mr.  President,  the  contest,  for  ages,  has  been  to  rescue  Lib- 
erty froru  the  grasp  of  executive  power.  Whoever  has  engaged 
in  her  sacred  cause,  from  the  days  of  the  downfall  of  those 
great  aristocracies  which  had  stood  between  the  king  and  the 
people  to  the  time  of  our  independence,  has  struggled  for  the 
accomplishment  of  that  single  object.  On  the  long  list  of  the 
champions  of  human  freedom,  there  is  not  one  name  dimmed 
by  the  reproach  of  advocating  the  extension  of  executive  au- 
thority: on  the  contrary,  the  uniform  and  steady  purpose  of  all 
such  champions  has  been  to  limit  and  restrain  it.  To  this  end, 
the  spirit  of  liberty,  growing  more  and  more  enlightened,  and 
more  and  more  vigorous  from  age  to  age,  has  been  battering,  for 
centuries,  against  the  solid  butments  of  the  feudal  system. 
To  this  end,  all  that  could  be  gained  from  the  imprudence, 
snatched  from  the  weakness,  or  wrung  from  the  necessities  of 
crowned  heads,  has  been  carefully  gathered  up,  secured,  and 
hoarded,  as  the  rich  treasures,  the  very  jewels  of  liberty.  To 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  449 

this  end,  popular  and  representative  right  has  kept  up  its  war- 
fare against  prerogative,  with  various  success ;  sometimes 
writing  the  history  of  a  whole  age  in  blood  ;  sometimes  witness- 
ing the  martyrdom  of  Sidneys  and  Russells  ;  often  baffled  and 
repulsed,  but  still  gaining,  on  the  whole,  and  holding  what  it 
gained  with  a  grasp  which  nothing  but  the  complete  extinction 
of  its  own  being  could  compel  it  to  relinquish.  At  length  the 
great  conquest  over  executive  power,  in  the  leading  western 
States  of  Europe,  has  been  accomplished.  The  feudal  system, 
like  other  stupendous  fabrics  of  past  ages,  is  known  only  by  the 
rubbish  which  it  has  left  behind  it.  Crowned  heads  have  been 
compelled  to  submit  to  the  restraints  of  law,  and  the  PEOPLE, 
with  that  intelligence  and  that  spirit  which  make  their  voice  re- 
sistless, have  been  able  to  say  to  prerogative,  "Thus  far  shalt 
thou  come,  and  no  further."  I  need  hardly  say,  Sir,  that  into 
the  full  enjoyment  of  all  which  Europe  has  1'eached  only 
through  such  slow  and  painful  steps  we  sprang  at  once,  by  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  by  the  establishment  of  free 
representative  governments  ;  governments  borrowing  more  or 
less  from  the  models  of  other  free  States,  but  strengthened,  se- 
cured, improved  in  their  symmetry,  and  deepened  in  their 
foundation,  by  those  great  men  of  our  own  country  whose 
names  will  be  as  familiar  to  future  times  as  if  they  were  written 
on  the  arch  of  the  sky. 

Through  all  this  history  of  the  contest  for  liberty,  executive 
power  has  been  regarded  as  a  lion  which  must  be  caged.  So 
far  from  being  the  object  of  enlightened  popular  trust,  so  far 
from  being  considered  the  natural  protector  of  popular  right,  it 
has  been  dreaded,  uniformly,  always  dreaded,  as  the  great 
source  of  its  danger. 

And  now,  Sir,  who  is  he,  so  ignorant  of  the  history  of  liberty, 
at  home  and  abroad  ;  who  is  he,  yet  dwelling,  in  his  contempla- 
tions, among  the  principles  and  dogmas  of  the  Middle  Ages ; 
who  is  he,  from  whose  bosom  all  original  infusion  of  American 
spirit  has  become  so  entirely  evaporated  and  exhaled,  as  that  he 
shall  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  President  of  the  United  States 
the  doctrine  that  the  defence  of  liberty  naturally  results  to  exec- 
utive power,  and  is  its  peculiar  duty?  Who  is  he  that,  gener- 
ous and  conliding  towards  power  where  it  is  most  dangerous, 
and  jealous  only  of  those  who  can  restrain  it ;  who  is  he  that, 
reversing  the  order  of  the  State,  and  upheaving  the  base,  would 
poise  the  pyramid  of  the  political  system  upon  its  apex  ?  Who 
is  he  that,  overlooking  with  contempt  the  guardianship  of  the 
representatives  of  the  people,  and  with  equal  contempt  the 
higher  guardianship  of  the  people  themselves  ;  —  who  is  he  that 
declares  to  us,  through  the  President's  lips,  that  the  security 


450  -WEBSTER. 

for  freedom  rests  in  executive  authority  ?  Who  is  he  that  be- 
lies  the  blood  and  libels  the  fame  of  his  own  ancestors,  by 
declaring  that  Mr//,  with  solemnity  of  form  and  force  of  manner, 
have  invoked  the  executive  power  to  come  to  the  protection  of 
liberty?  Who  is  he  that  thus  charges  them  with  the  insanity, 
or  the  recklessness,  of  putting  the  lamb  beneath  the  lion's 
paw?  Xo,  Sir.  No,  Sir.  Our  security  is  in  our  watchfulness 
of  executive  power.  It  was  the  constitution  of  this  department 
which  was  infinitely  the  most  difficult  part  in  the  great  work 
of  creating  our  present  government.  To  give  to  the  executive 
department  such  power  as  should  make  it  useful,  and  yet  not 
such  as  should  render  it  dangerous;  to  make  it  efficient,  inde- 
pendent, and  strong,  and  yet  to  prevent  it  from  sweeping  away 
every  thing  by  its  union  of  military  and  civil  authority,  by  the 
inlluencc  of  patronage,  and  office,  and  favour ;  — this,  indeed, 
was  difficult,"  They  who  had  the  work  to  do  saw  the  difficulty, 
and  we  see  it ;  and  if  we  would  maintain  our  system,  we  shall 
act  wisely  to  that  end,  by  preserving  every  restraint  and  every 
guard  which  the  Constitution  has  provided.  And  when  we, 
and  those  who  come  after  us,  have  done  all  that  we  can  do,  and 
all  that  they  can  do,  it  will  be  well  for  us  and  for  them,  if  some 
popular  executive,  by  the  power  of  patronage  and  party,  and 
the  power,  too,  of  that  very  popularity,  shall  not  hereafter 
prove  an  overmatch  for  all  other  branches  of  the  government. 

I  do  not  wish,  Sir,  to  impair  the  power  of  the  President,  as  it 
stands  written  down  in  the  Constitution,  and  as  great  and  good 
men  have  hitherto  exercised  it.  In  this,  as  in  other  respects,  I 
am  for  the  Constitution  as  it  is.  But  I  will  not  acquiesce  in  the 
reversal  of  all  just  ideas  of  government ;  I  will  not  degrade  the 
character  of  popular  representation  ;  I  will  not  blindly  confide, 
where  all  experience  admonishes  me  to  be  jealous ;  I  will  not 
trust  executive  power,  vested  in  the  hands  of  a  single  magis- 
trate, to  be  the  guardian  of  liberty. 

Having  claimed  for  the  executive  the  especial  guardianship 
of  the  Constitution,  the  Protest  proceeds  to  present  a  summary 
view  of  the  powers  which  are  supposed  to  be  conferred  on  the 
executive  by  that  instrument.  And  it  is  to  this  part  of  the 
message,  Sir,  that  I  would,  more  than  to  all  others,  call  the 
particular  attention  of  the  Senate.  I  confess  that  it  was  only 
upon  careful  reperusal  of  the  paper  that  I  perceived  the  extent 
to  which  its  assertions  of  power  reach.  I  do  not  speak  now  of 
the  President's  claims  of  power  as  opposed  to  legislative  au- 
thority, but  of  his  opinions  as  to  his  own  authority,  duty,  and 
responsibility,  as  connected  with  all  other  officers  under  the 
government.  He  is  of  opinion  that  the  whole  execut  ivo  power  is 
vested  in  him,  and  that  he  is  responsible  for  its  entire  exercise  ; 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.  451 

that,  among  the  duties  imposed  on  him,  is  that  of  "taking  care 
that  the  laws  be  faithfully  executed ;"  and  that,  "being  thus 
made  responsible  for  the  entire  action  of  the  executive  depart- 
ment, it  was  but  reasonable  that  the  power  of  appointing,  over- 
seeing, and  controlling  those  who  execute  the  laws — a  power 
in  its  nature  executive — should  remain  in  his  hands.  It  is, 
therefore,  not  only  his  right,  but  the  Constitution  makes  it  his 
duty,  to  'nominate,  and,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of 
the  Senate,  appoint,' all  'officers  of  the  United  States  whose 
appointments  are  not  in  the  Constitution  otherwise  provided 
for,'  with  a  proviso  that  the  appointment  of  inferior  officers 
may  be  vested  in  the  President  alone,  in  the  courts  of  justice, 
or  in  the  heads  of  departments." 

The  first  proposition,  then,  which  the  Protest  asserts,  in 
regard  to  the  President's  powers  as  executive  magistrate,  is, 
that,  the  general  duty  being  imposed  on  him  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, of  taking  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  executed,  he 
thereby  becomes  himself  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  every  person 
employed  in  tlic  government;  "for  the  entire  action,"  as  the  paper 
expresses  it,  "of  the  executive  department."  This,  Sir,  is  very 
dangerous  logic.  I  reject  the  inference  altogether.  No  such 
responsibility,  nor  any  thing  like  it,  follows  from  the  general 
provision  of  the  Constitution,  making  it  his  duty  to  see  the  laws 
executed.  If  it  did,  we  should  have,  in  fact,  but  one  officer  in 
the  whole  government.  The  President  would  be  everybody. 
And  the  Protest  assumes  to  the  President  this  whole  responsi- 
bility for  every  other  officer,  for  the  very  purpose  of  making 
the  President  everybody,  of  annihilating  every  thing  like  inde- 
pendence, responsibility,  or  character  in  all  other  public  agents. 
The  whole  responsibility  is  assumed,  in  order  that  it  may  be 
more  plausibly  argued  that  all  officers  of  government  are,  not 
agents  of  the  law,  but  the  President's  agents,  and  therefore 
responsible  to  him  alone.  If  he  be  responsible  for  the  conduct 
of  all  officers,  and  they  be  responsible  to  him  only,  then  it  may 
be  maintained  that  such  officers  are  but  his  own  agents,  his 
substitutes,  his  deputies.  The  iirst  thing  to  be  done,  there- 
fore, is  to  assume  the  responsibility  for  all ;  and  this,  you  will 
perceive.  Sir,  is  done,  in  the  fullest  manner,  in  the  passages 
which  I  have  read.  Having  thus  assumed  for  the  President 
the  entire  responsibility  of  the  whole  government,  the  Protest 
advances  boldly  to  its  conclusion,  and  claims,  at  once,  absolute 
power  over  all  individuals  in  office,  as  being  merely  the  Presi- 
dent's agents.  This  is  the  language  :  "The  whole  executive 
power  being  vested  in  the  President,  who  is  responsible  for  its 
exercise,  it  is  a  necessary  consequence  that  he  should  have  a 
right  to  employ  agents  of  his  own  choice,  to  aid  him  in  the  per- 


452  WEBSTER. 

formance  of  his  duties,  and  to  discharge  thorn  when  lie  is  no 
longer  willing  to  be  responsible  for  their  acts." 

This,  Sir,  completes  the  work.  This  handsomely  rounds  off 
the  whole  executive  system  of  executive  authority.  First,  the 
President  has  the  whole  responsibility ;  and  then,  being  thus 
responsible  for  all,  he  has,  and  ought  to  have,  the  whole  power. 
We  have  heard  of  political  »'/?//.<,  and  our  American  executive, 
as  here  represented,  is  indeed  a  unit.  We  have  a  charmingly 
simple  government !  Instead  of  many  officers,  in  different 
departments,  each  having  appropriate  duties,  and  each  respon- 
sible for  his  own  duties,  we  are  so  fortunate  as  to  have  to  deal 
with  but  one  officer.  The  President  carries  on  the  government ; 
all  the  rest  are  but  sub-contractors.  Sir,  whatever  name  wo 
give  him,  we  have  but  ONE  EXECUTIVE  OFFICER.  A  Briareus 
sits  in  the  centre  of  our  system,  and  with  his  hundred  hands 
touches  every  tiling,  moves  every  thing,  controls  every  thing. 
I  ask,  Sir,  Is  this  republicanism?  Is  this  a  government  of 
laws?  Is  this  legal  rc>ponsibilit>  ? 

According  to  the  Protest,  the  very  duties  which  every  officer 
under  the  government  performs  are  the  duties  of  the  President 
himself.  It  says  that  the  President  has  a  right  to  employ 
agents  of  his  own  choice,  to  aid  HIM  in  the  performance  of  HIS 
duties. 

Mr.  President,  if  these  doctrines  be  true,  it  is  idle  for  us  any 
longer  to  talk  about  any  such  thing  as  a  government  of  laws. 
We  have  no  government  of  laws,  not  even  the  semblance  or 
shadow  of  it:  we  have  no  legal  responsibility.  We  have  an 
executive,  consisting  of  one  person,  wielding  all  official  power, 
and  who  is,  to  every  effectual  purpose,  completely  irresponsible. 
The  President  declares  that  he  is  "responsible  for  the  entire 
action  of  the  executive  department."  Responsible!  What 
does  he  mean  by  being  "responsible"?  Does  he  mean  legal 
responsibility?  Certainly  not.  No  such  thing.  Legal  respon- 
sibility signifies  liability  to  punishment  for  misconduct  or  mal- 
administration. But  the  Protest  does  not  mean  that  the  Presi- 
dent is  liable  to  be  impeached  and  punished,  if  a  Secretary  of 
State  should  commit  treason,  if  a  collector  of  the  customs 
should  be  guilty  of  bribery,  or  if  a  treasurer  should  embezzle 
the  public  money.  It  does  not  mean,  and  cannot  mean,  that 
he  should  be  answerable  for  any  such  crime  or  such  delin- 
quency. What,  then,  is  its  notion  of  that  responsibility  which 
it  says  the  President  is  under  for  all  officers,  and  which  au- 
thorizes him  to  consider  all  officers  as  his  own  personal  agents? 
Sir,  it  is  merely  responsibility  to  public  opinion.  It  is  a  liability 
to  be  blamed  ;  it  is  the  chance  of  becoming  unpopular,  the  dan- 
ger of  losing  a  reelection.  Nothing  else  is  meant  in  the  world. 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  453 

It  is  the  hazard  of  failing  in  any  attempt  or  enterprise  of  am- 
bition. This  is  all  the  responsibility  to  which  the  doctrines 
of  the  Protest  hold  the  President  subject. 

It  is  precisely  the  responsibility  under  which  Cromwell  acted 
when  he  dispersed  Parliament,  telling  its  members,  not  in  so 
many  words  indeed,  that  they  disobeyed  the  will  of  their  con- 
stituents, but  telling  them  that  the  people  were  sick  of  them, 
and  that  he  drove  them  out  "for  the  glory  of  God,  and  the 
good  of  the  nation."  It  is  precisely  the  responsibility  upon 
which  Bonaparte  broke  up  the  popular  assembly  of  France.  I 
do  not  mean,  Sir,  certainly,  by  these  illustrations,  to  insinuate 
designs  of  violent  usurpation  against  the  President ;  far  from 
it :  but  I  do  mean  to  maintain  that  such  responsibility  as 
that  with  which  the  Protest  clothes  him  is  no  legal  responsi- 
bility, no  constitutional  responsibility,  no  republican  responsi- 
bility ;  but  a  mere  liability  to  loss  of  office,  loss  of  character, 
and  loss  of  fame,  if  he  shall  choose  to  violate  the  laws  and 
overturn  the  liberties  of  the  country.  It  is  such  a  responsi- 
bility as  leaves  every  thing  in  his  discretion  and  his  pleasure. 

Sir,  it  exceeds  human  belief  that  any  man  should  put  senti- 
ments such  as  this  paper  contains  into  a  public  communication 
from  the  President  to  the  Senate.  They  are  sentiments  which 
give  us  all  one  master.  The  Protest  asserts  an  absolute  right 
to  remove  all  persons  from,  office  at  pleasure ;  and  for  what 
reason?  Because  they  are  incompetent?  Because  they  are 
incapable  ?  Because  they  are  remiss,  negligent,  or  inattentive  ? 
No,  Sir ;  these  are  not  the  reasons.  But  he  may  discharge 
them,  one  and  all,  simply  because  "he  is  no  longer  willing  to 
be  responsible  for  their  acts!"  It  insists  on  an 'absolute  right 
in  the  President  to  direct  and  control  every  act  of  every  officer 
of  the  government,  except  the  judges.  It  asserts  this  right  of 
direct  control  over  and  over  again.  The  President  may  go  into 
the  treasury,  among  the  auditors  and  comptrollers,  and  direct 
them  how  to  settle  every  man's  account :  what  abatements  to 
make  from  one,  what  additions  to  another.  lie  may  go  into 
the  custom-house,  among  collectors  and  appraisers,  and  may 
control  estimates,  reductions,  and  appraisements.  It  is  true 
that  these  officers  are  sworn  to  discharge  the  duties  of  their 
respective  offices  honestly  and  fairly,  according  to  their  own 
best  abilities  ;  it  is  true  that  many  of  them  are  liable  to  indict- 
ment for  official  misconduct,  and  others  responsible,  in  suits  of 
individuals,  for  damages  and  penalties,  if  such  official  miscon- 
duct be  proved ;  but,  notwithstanding  all  this,  the  Protest 
avers  that  all  these  officers  are  but  the  President's  agents;  that 
they  are  but  aiding  him  in  the  discharge  of  Ids  duties  ;  that  he 
is  responsible  for  their  conduct,  and  that  they  are  removable  at 


454  WEBSTER. 

his  will  and  pleasure.  And  it  is  under  this  view  of  his  own  au- 
thority that  the  President  calls  the  Secretaries  Jus  Secretaries, 
not  once  only,  but  repeatedly.  After  half  a  century's  adminis- 
tration of  this  government,  Sir ;  —  after  wo  have  endeavoured, 
Tiy  statute  upon  statute,  and  by  provision  following  provision, 
to  define  and  limit  official  authority ;  to  assign  particular  duties 
to  particular  public  servants  ;  to  define  those  duties  ;  to  create 
penalties  for  their  violation  ;  to  adjust  accurately  the  responsi- 
bility of  each  agent  with  his  own  powers  and  his  own  duties  ;  to 
establish  the  prevalence  of  equal  rule;  to  make  the  law,  as  far 
as  possible,  everything,  and  individual  will,  as  far  as  possible, 
nothing  ;— after  all  this,  the  astounding  assertion  rings  in  our 
ears,  that,  throughout  the  whole  range  of  official  agency,  in  its 
smallest  ramifications  as  well  as  in  its  larger  masses,  there 

is    but    ONE     RESPONSIBILITY,    ONE    DISCRETION,    ONE    WILL  ! 

True  indeed  it  is,  Sir,  if  these  sentiments  be  maintained,  true 
indeed  it  is,  that  a  President  of  the  United  States  may  well 
repeat,  from  Xapoleon,  what  he  repeated  from  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth, "lam  the  State!" 

The  argument,  by  which  the  writer  of  the  Protest  endeavours 
to  establish  the- President's  claim  to  this  vast  mass  of  accumu- 
lated authority,  is  founded  on  the  provision  of  the  Constitution, 
that  the  executive  power  shall  be  vested  in  the  President.  Xo 
doubt  the  executive  power  is  vested  in  the  President ;  but  what 
and  how  much  executive  power,  and  how  limited?  To  this 
question  I  should  answer,  "Look  to  the  Constitution,  and  sec  ; 
examine  the  particulars  of  the  grant,  and  learn  what  that  exec- 
utive power  is  which  is  given  to  the  President,  either  by  express 
words  or  by  necessary  implication."  But  so  the  writer  of  this 
Protest  does  not  reason.  lie  takes  these  words  of  the  Consti- 
tution as  being,  of  themselves,  a  general  original  grant  of  all 
executive  power  to  the  President,  subject  only  to  such  express 
limitations  as  the  Constitution  prescribes.  This  is  clearly  the 
writer's  view  of  the  subject,  unless  indeed  he  goes  behind  the 
Constitution  altogether,  as  some  expressions  would  intimate,  to 
search  elsewhere  for  sources  of  executive  power.  Thus  the 
Protest  says  that  it  is  not  only  the  right  of  the  President,  but 
that  the  Constitution  makes  it  his  duty,  to  appoint  persons  to 
olfice ;  as  if  the  right  existed  before  the  Constitution  had 
created  the  duty.  It  speaks,  too,  of  the  power  of  removal,  not 
as  a  power  granted  by  the  Constitution,  but  expressly  as  "an 
original  executive  power,  unchecked  by  the  Constitution."  I 
should  be  glad  to  know  how  the  President  gets  possession  of 
any  power  by  a  title  earlier,  or  more  original,  than  the  grant  of 
the  Constitution  ;  or  what  is  meant  by  an  original  power,  which 
the  President  possesses,  and  which  the  Constitution  has  Icj't  un- 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  455 

checked  in  his  hands.  The  truth  is,  Sir,  most  assuredly,  that 
the  writer  of  the  Protest,  in  these  passages,  was  reasoning  upon 
the  British  Constitution,  and  not  upon  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Indeed,  he  professes  to  found  himself  on  au- 
thority drawn  from  the  Constitution  of  England.  I  will  read, 
Sir,  the  whole  passage.  It  is  this: 

"  In  strict  accordance  with  this  principle,  the  power  of  removal, 
which,  like  that  of  appointment,  is  an  original  executive  power, 
is  left  unchecked  by  the  Constitution  in  relation  to  all  executive 
officers,  for  whose  conduct  the  President  is  responsible  ;  while 
it  is  taken  from  him  in  relation  to  judicial  officers,  for  whose 
acts  he  is  not  responsible.  In  the  government  from  wliich  many  of 
the  fundamental  principles  of  our  system  arc  derived,  the  head  of  the 
executive  department  oriyinalli/  had  power  to  appoint  and  remove  at 
will  all  officers,  executive  and  judicial.  It  was  to  take  the  judges 
out  of  this  general  power  of  removal,  and  thus  make  them  inde- 
pendent of  the  executive,  that  the  tenure  of  their  offices  was 
changed  to  good  behaviour.  Nor  is  it  conceivable  why  they  are 
placed,  in  our  Constitution,  upon  a  tenure  different  from  that 
of  all  other  officers  appointed  by  the  executive,  unless  it  be  for 
the  same  purpose." 

Mr.  President,  I  do  most  solemnly  protest  (if  I  too  may  be 
permitted  to  make  a  protest)  against  this  mode  of  reasoning. 
The  analogy  between  the  British  Constitution  and  ours,  in  this 
respect,  is  not  close  enough  to  guide  us  safely ;  it  can  only  mis- 
lead us.  It  has  entirely  misled  the  writer  of  the  Protest.  The 
President  is  made  to  argue,  upon  this  subject,  as  if  he  had  some 
right  anterior  to  the  Constitution,  which  right  is,  by  that  instru- 
ment, checked,  in  some  respects,  and  in  other  respects  is  left 
unchecked,  but  which,  nevertheless,  still  derives  its  being  from 
another  source  ;  just  as  the  British  King  had,  in  the  early  ages 
of  the  monarchy,  an  uncontrolled  right  of  appointing  and  re- 
moving all  officers  at  pleasure  ;  but  which  right,  so  far  as  it 
respects  the  judges,  has  since  been  checked  and  controlled  by 
Act  of  Parliament ;  the  right  being  original  and  inherent,  the 
check  only  imposed  by  law.  Sir,  I  distrust  altogether  British 
precedents,  authorities,  and  analogies,  on  such  questions  as  this. 
We  are  not  inquiring  how  far  our  Constitution  has  impose;! 
checks  on  a  preexisting  authority.  We  are  inquiring  what  extent 
of  power  that  Constitution  has  granted.  The  grant  of  power, 
the  whole  source  of  power,  as  well  as  the  restrictions  and  lim- 
itations which  are  imposed  on  it,  is  made  in  and  by  the  Consti- 
tution. It  has  no  other  origin.  And  it  is  this,  Sir,  which 
distinguishes  our  system  so  very  widely  and  materially  from 
the  systems  of  Europe.  Our  governments  are  limited  govern- 
ments ;  limited  in  their  origin,  in  their  very  creation ;  limited, 


456  WEBSTER. 

because  none  but  specific  powers  were  ever  granted  either  to 
any  department  of  government,  or  to  the  whole:  theirs  are  lim- 
ited, whenever  limited  at,  all,  by  reason  of  restraints  imposed  at 
different  times  on  governments  originally  unlimited  and  des- 
potic. Our  American  questions,  therefore,  must  be  discussed. 
reasoned  on,  decided,  and  settled,  on  the  appropriate  principles 
of  our  own  constitutions,  and  not  by  inapplicable  precedents 
and  loose  analogies  drawn  from  foreign  States. 

Mr.  President,  in  one  of  the  French  comedies,  as  you  know, 
in  which  the  dulness  and  prolixity  of  legal  argument  is  in- 
tended to  be  severely  satirized,  while  the  advocate  is  tediously 
groping  among  ancient  lore  having  nothing  to  do  with  his  ca>e, 
the  judge  grows  impatient,  and  at  last  cries  out  to  him  to  come 
(hum  to  the  flood  I  I  really  wish,  Sir,  that  the  writer  of  thisPro- 
tc-t.  since  he  was  discussing  matters  of  the  highest  importance 
to  us  as  Americans,  and  which  arise  out  of  our  own  peculiar  Con- 
stitution, had  kept  himself,  not  only  on  this  side  the  general 
deluge,  but  also  on  this  side  the  Atlantic.  I  desire  that  all  the 
broad  waves  of  that  wide  sea  should  continue  to  roll  between 
us  and  the  influence  of  those  foreign  principles  and  foreign  pre- 
cedents which  he  so  eagerly  adopts. 

In  asserting  power  for  an  American  President,  I  prefer  he 
should  attempt  to  maintain  his  assertions  on  American  reasons. 
I  know  not,  Sir,  who  the  writer  was,  (I  wish  I  did;)  but,  who- 
ever he  was,  it  is  manifest  that  he  argues  this  part  of  his  case, 
throughout,  on  the  principles  of  the  Constitution  of  England. 
It  is  true  that,  in  England,  the  King  is  regarded  as  the  original 
fountain  of  all  honour  and  all  olllce  ;  and  that  anciently  indeed 
he  possessed  all  political  power  of  every  kind.  It  is  true  that 
this  mass  of  authority,  in  the  history  of  that  government,  has 
been  diminished,  restrained,  and  controlled,  by  charters;,  by 
immunities,  by  grants,  and  by  various  modifications,  which  the 
friends  of  liberty  have,  at  different  periods,  been  able  to  obtain 
or  to  impose.  All  liberty,  as  we  know,  all  popular  privilc- 
indeed  the  word  itself  imports,  were  formerly  considered  as 
lavours  and  concessions  from  the  monarch.  But  whenever  and 
wherever  civil  freedom  could  get  a  foothold,  and  could  main- 
tain itself,  these  favours  were  turned  into  rights.  Before  and 
during  the  reigns  of  the  princes  of  the  Stuart  family,  they  were 
acknowledged  only  as  favours  or  privileges  graciously  allowed; 
although  even  then,  whenever  opportunity  offered,  as  in  the  in- 
stance to  which  I  alluded  just  now,  they  were  contended  for  as 
rights  ;  and  by  the  Revolution  of  1038  they  were  acknowledged 
as  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  by  the  prince  who  then  ascended 
the  throne,  and  as  the  condition  on  which  he  was  allowed  to  sit 
upon  it.  But  with  us  there  never  was  a  time  when  we  acknowl- 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   PROTEST.  457 

edged  original,  unrestrained,  sovereign  power  over  us.  Our 
Constitutions  are  not  made  to  limit  and  restrain  preexisting  au- 
thority. They  are  the  instruments  by  which  the  people  confer 
power  on  their  own  servants.  If  I  may  use  a  legal  phrase,  the 
people  are  grantors,  not  grantees.  They  give  to  the  govern- 
ment, and  to  each  branch  of  it,  all  the  power  it  possesses,  or  can 
possess;  and  what  is  not  given  they  retain.  In  England,  before 
her  Revolution,  and  in  the  rest  of  Europe  since,  if  we  would 
know  the  extent  of  liberty  or  popular  right,  we  must  go  to 
grants,  to  charters,  to  allowances,  and  indulgences.  But  with 
us,  we  go  to  grants  and  to  constitutions  to  learn  the  extent  of 
the  powers  of  government.  No  political  power  is  more  original 
than  the  Constitution  ;  none  is  possessed  which  is  not  there 
granted  ;  and  the  grant,  and  the  limitations  of  the  grant,  are  in 
the  same  instrument. 

The  powers,  therefore,  belonging  to  any  branch  of  our  gov- 
ernment are  to  be  construed  and  settled,  not  by  remote  anal- 
ogies drawn  from  other  governments,  but  from  the  words  of  the 
grant  itself,  in  their  plain  sense  and  necessary  import,  and 
according  to  an  interpretation  consistent  with  our  own  history 
and  the  spirit  of  our  own  institutions.  I  will  never  agree  that  a 
President  of  the  United  States  holds  the  whole  undivided 
power  of  office  in  his  own  hands,  upon  the  theory  that  he  is 
responsible  for  the  entire  action  of  the  whole  body  of  those 
engaged  in  carrying  on  the  government  and  executing  the  laws. 
Such  a  responsibility  is  purely  ideal,  delusive,  and  vain.  There 
is,  there  can  be,  no  substantial  responsibility,  any  further  than 
every  individual  is  answerable,  not  merely  in  his  reputation, 
not  merely  in  the  opinion  of  mankind,  but  to  the  law,  for  the 
faithful  discharge  of  his  own  appropriate  duties.  Again  and 
again  we  hear  it  said  that  the  President  is  responsible  to  the 
American  people  I  that  he  is  responsible  to  the  bar  of  public 
opinion  !  For  whatever  he  does,  he  assumes  accountability  to 
the  American  people  !  For  whatever  he  omits,  he  expects  to 
l>e  brought  to  the  high  bar  of  public  opinion  !  And  this  is 
thought  enough  for  a  limited,  restrained,  republican  govern- 
ment !  an  undefined,  undefinable,  ideal  responsibility  to  the 
public  judgment  I  Sir,  if  all  this  mean  any  thing,  if  it  be  not 
empty  sound,  it 'means  no  less  than  that  the  President  may  do 
any  thing  and  every  thing  which  he  may  expect  to  be  tolerated 
in  doing.  lie  may  go  just  so  far  as  he  thinks  it  safe  to  go  ;  and 
Cromwell  and  JJonapartc  went  no  further.  I  ask  again,  Sir,  Is 
this  legal  responsibility?  Is  this  the  true  nature  of  a  govern- 
ment with  written  laws  and  limited  powers?  And  allow  me, 
Sir,  to  ask,  too,  if  an  executive  magistrate,  while  professing  to 


458  WEBSTER. 

act  under  the  Constitution,  is  restrained  only  by  this  responsi- 
bility to  public  opinion,  what  prevents  him,  on  the  same  respon- 
sibility, from  proposing  a  change  in  that  Constitution?  Why 
may  he  not  say,  "I  am  about  to  introduce  new  forms,  new 
principles,  and  with  a  new  spirit ;  I  am  about  to  try  a  political 
experiment  on  a  great  scale  ;  and  when  I  pet  through  with  it, 
I  shall  be  responsible  to  the  American  people,  I  shall  be  an- 
swerable to  the  bar  of  public  opinion  "  ? 

Connected,  Sir,  with  the  idea  of  this  airy  and  unreal  responsi- 
bility to  the  public,  is  another  sentiment,  which  of  late  we  hear 
frequently  expressed  ;  and  that  is.  (hat  the  President  is  th 
representative  <>f  the  American  people.  This  is  declared,  in  tho 
Protest,  in  so  many  words.  "The  President."  says  the  Protest, 
"/.<?  the  direct  representative  of  the  American  people.9'  Now,  Sir, 
this  is  not  the  language  of  the  Constitution.  The  Constitution 
nowhere  calls  him  the  representative  of  the  American  people  ; 
still  less  their  direct  representative.  It  could  not  do  so  with 
the  least  propriety.  He  is  not  chosen  directly  by  the  people, 
but  by  a  body  of  electors,  some  of  whom  are  chosen  by  the 
people,  and  some  of  whom  are  appointed  by  the  State  legisla- 
tures. "Where,  then,  is  the  authority  for  saying  that  the  Presi- 
dent is  the  direct  representative  nf  the  people  ?  The  Constitution 
calls  the  members  of  the  other  House  Representatives,  and 
declares  that  they  shall  be  chosen  by  the  people ;  and  there 
are  no  other  direct  or  immediate  representatives  of  the  people 
in  this  government.  The  Constitution  denominates  the  Presi- 
dent simply  the  President  of  the  United  States  ;  it  points  out 
the  complex  mode  of  electing  him,  defines  his  powers  and  du- 
ties, and  imposes  limits  and  restraints  on  his  authority.  With 
these  powers  and  duties,  and  under  these  restraints,  he  be- 
comes, when  chosen,  President  of  the  United  States.  That  is 
his  character,  and  the  denomination  of  his  office.  How  is  it, 
then,  that,  on  this  official  character,  thus  cautiously  created, 
limited,  and  defined,  he  is  to  engraft  another,  and  a  very  im- 
posing character,  namely,  the  character  of  the  direct  representa- 
tive r*f  the  American  people?  I  hold  this,  Sir,  to  be  mere  as- 
sumption, and  dangerous  assumption.  If  lie  is  the  representa- 
tive of  all  the  American  people,  he  is  the  only  representative 
which  they  all  have.  Nobody  else  presumes  to  represent  all 
the  people.  And  if  he  may  be  allowed  to  consider  himself  as 

the  SOLE   rtEPIfESENTATIVE  OF  ALL  THE   AMERICAN   PEOPLE, 

and  is  to  act  under  no  other  responsibility  than  such  as  I  have 
already  described,  then  I  say.  Sir,  that  the  government  (I  will 
not  say  the  people)  has  already  a  master.  I  deny  the  sentiment, 
therefore,  and  I  protest  against  the  language  ;  neither  the 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  PROTEST.  459 

sentiment  nor  the  language  is  to  be  found  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  country ;  and  whosoever  is  not  satisfied  to  describe  the 
powers  of  the  President  in  the  language  of  the  Constitution 
may  be  justly  suspected  of  being  as  little  satisfied  with  the 
powers  themselves.  The  President  is  President.  His  office 
and  his  name  of  office  are  known,  and  both  arc  fixed  and 
described  by  law.  Being  commander  of  the  army  and  navy, 
holding  the  power  of  nominating  to  office  and  removing  from 
office,  and  being,  by  these  powers,  the  fountain  of  all  patronage 
and  all  favour,  what  does  he  not  become  if  he  be  allowed  to 
superadd  to  all  this  the  character  of  single  representative  of 
the  American  people?  Sir,  he  becomes  what  America  has  not 
been  accustomed  to  see,  what  this  Constitution  has  never  cre- 
ated, and  what  I  cannot  contemplate  but  with  profound  alarm. 
He  who  may  call  himself  the  single  representative  of  a  nation, 
may  speak  in  the  name  of  the  nation  ;  may  undertake  to  wield 
the  power  of  the  nation  ;  and  who  shall  gainsay  him,  in  whatso- 
ever he  chooses  to  pronounce  as  the  nation's  will  ? 

I  will  now,  Sir,  ask  leave  to  recapitulate  the  general  doctrines 
of  this  Protest,  and  to  present  them  together.  They  are: 

That  neither  branch  of  the  legislature  can  take  up,  or  con- 
sider, for  the  purpose  of  censure,  any  official  act  of  the  Presi- 
dent, without  some  view  to  legislation  or  impeachment ; 

That  not  only  the  passage,  but  the  discussion,  of  the  resolu- 
tion of  the  Senate  of  the  28th  of  March,  was  unauthorized  by 
the  Constitution,  and  repugnant  to  its  provisions  ; 

That  the  custody  of  the  public  treasury  always  must  be  in- 
trusted to  the  executive  ;  that  Congress  cannot  take  it  out  of 
his  hands,  nor  place  it  anywhere  except  under  such  superinten- 
dents and  keepers  as  are  appointed  by  him,  responsible  to  him, 
and  removable  at  his  will ; 

That  the  whole  executive  power  is  in  the  President,  and  that 
therefore  the  duty  of  defending  the  integrity  of  the  Constitu- 
tion results  to  him  from  the  very  nature  of  his  office  ;  and  that  the 
founders  of  our  republic  have  attested  their  sense  of  the  im- 
portance of  this  duty,  and,  by  expressing  it  in  his  official  oath, 
have  given  to  it  peculiar  solemnity  and  force  ; 

That/  as  he  is  to  take  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  exe- 
cuted, he  is  thereby  made  responsible  for  the  entire  action  of 
the  executive  department,  with  power  of  appointing,  oversee- 
ing, and  controlling  those  who  execute  the  laws  ; 

That  the  power  of  removal  from  office,  like  that  of  appoint- 
ment, is  an  original  executive  power,  and  is  left  in  his  hands 
unchecked  by  the  Constitution,  except  in  the  case  of  judges ; 
that,  being  responsible  for  the  exercise  of  the  whole  executive 


460  WEBSTER. 

power,  he  has  a  right  to  employ  agents  of  his  own  choice  to 
assist  Jrim  in  the  performance  of  his  duties,  and  to  discharge 
them  when  he  is  no  longer  willing  to  be  responsible  for  their 
acts ; 

That  the  Secretaries  are  his  Secretaries,  and  all  persons  ap- 
pointed to  offices  created  by  law,  except  the  judges,  /</.•*  agents, 
responsible  to  him,  and  removable  at  his  pleasure  ; 

And,  finally,  that  he  is  the  direct  representative  of  tlie  American 
people. 

These,  Sir,  are  some  of  the  leading  propositions  contained  in 
the  Protest ;  and  if  they  be  true,  then  the  government  under 
which  we  live  is  an  elective  monarchy.  It  is  not  yet  absolute  ; 
there  are  yet  some  checks  and  limitations  in  the  Constitution 
and  laws  ;  but,  in  its  essential  and  prevailing  character,  it  is  an 
elective  monarchy. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  spoken  freely  of  this  Protest,  and  of 
the  doctrines  which  it  advances;  but  I  have  spoken  deliber- 
ately. On  these  high  questions  of  constitutional  law,  respect 
for  my  own  character,  as  well  as  a  solemn  and  profound  sense 
of  duty,  restrains  me  from  giving  utterance  to  a  sint-le  senti- 
ment which  does  not  flow  from  entire  conviction.  1  feel  that  I 
am  not  wrong.  I  feel  that  an  inborn  and  inbred  love  of  con- 
stitutional liberty,  and  some  study  of  our  political  institutions, 
have  not  on  this  occasion  misled  me.  But  I  have  desired  to  say 
nothing  that  should  give  pain  to  the  chief  magistrate  person- 
ally. I  have  not  sought  to  fix  arrows  in  his  breast ;  but  I  believe 
him  mistaken,  altogether  mistaken,  in  the  sentiments  which  he 
has  expressed  ;  and  I  must  concur  with  others  in  placing  on  the 
records  of  the  Senate  my  disapprobation  of  those  sentiments. 
On  a  vote  which  is  to  remain  so  long  as  any  proceeding  of  the 
Senate  shall  last,  and  on  a  question  which  can  never  cease  to  be 
important  while  the  Constitution  of  the  country  endures,  I 
have  desired  to  make  public  my  reasons.  They  will  now  be 
known,  and  I  submit  them  to  the  judgment  of  the  present  and 
of  after  times.  Sir,  the  occasion  is  full  of  interest,  it  cannot 
pass  off  without  leaving  strong  impressions  on  the  character  of 
public  men.  A  collision  has  taken  place  which  I  could  have 
most  anxiously  wished  to  avoid ;  but  it  wras  not  to  be  shunned. 
Vv'c  have  not  sought  this  controversy  :  it  has  met  us,  and  been 
forced  upon  us.  In  my  judgment,  the  law  has  been  disregarded, 
and  the  Constitution  transgressed;  the  fortress  of  liberty  has 
been  assaulted,  and  circumstances  have  placed  the  Senate  in 
the  breach ;  and,  although  we  may  perish  in  it>  I  know  we 
shall  not  ily  from  it.  But  I  am  fearless  of  consequences.  AVe 
shall  hold  on,  Sir,  and  hold  out,  till  the  people  themselves  come 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   WASHINGTON.  4G1 

to  its  defence.  We  shall  raise  the  alarm,  and  maintain  the  post, 
till  they  whose  right  it  is  shall  decide  whether  the  Senate  be  a 
faction,  wantonly  resisting  lawful  power,  or  whether  it  be  op- 
posing, with  firmness  and  patriotism,  violations  of  liberty  and 
inroads  upon  the  Constitution.1 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  WASHINGTON.2 

I  RISE,  Gentlemen,  to  propose  to  you  the  name  of  that  great 
man  in  commemoration  of  whose  birth,  and  in  honour  of  whose 
character  and  services,  we  have  here  assembled. 

I  am  sure  that  I  express  a  sentiment  common  to  every  one 
present,  when  I  say  that  there  is  something  more  than  ordina- 
rily solemn  and  affecting  in  this  occasion. 

We  are  met  to  testify  our  regard  for  him  whose  name  is  inti- 
mately blended  with  whatever  belongs  most  essentially  to  the 
prosperity,  the  liberty,  the  free  institutions,  and  the  renown  of 
our  country.  That  name  was  of  power  to  rally  a  nation,  in  the 
hour  of  thick-thronging  public  disasters  and  calamities ;  that 
name  shone,  amid  the  storm  of  war,  a  beacon  light,  to  cheer  and 
guide  the  country's  friends ;  it  llamed,  too,  like  a  meteor,  to 
repel  her  foes.  That  name,  in  the  days  of  peace,  was  a  load- 
stone, attracting  to  itself  a  whole  people's  confidence,  a  whole 

1  This,  I  believe,  is,  on  the  whole,  my  favourite  of  all  Webster's  speeches,^ 
hia  clearest,  tightest,  and  most  finished  piece  of  workmanship.    It  seems  to  me 
hardly  less  than  a  model  of  calm,  balanced,  well-rounded  discourse.    The  rea- 
soning, I  think,  holds  water  at  every  point.    Clear  statement,  luminous  order, 
and  logical  coherence  are  in  an  eminent  degree  its  characteristics ;  and  as  an 
exposition  or  argument  in  constitutional  law,  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  well  be 
beaten;  while  its  occasional  flights  of  rhetoric  are  severe  and  restrained,  and 
just  enough  to  keep  the  heart  awake  without  unpoising  the  head.    But  what  is 
perhaps  most  worthy  of  note  is,  that  the  speaker  here  seems  perfectly  at  home 
in  his  subject,  and  moves  with  the  ease  of  conscious  mastery,  as  if  he  lelt  per- 
!'-<-tly  ut  home.    Chancellor  Kent,  of  New  York,  a  very  high  authority  in  such 

,  seems  to  have  been  fairly  overcome  with  delight  on  reading  it.  Writing 
t  ;  Webster,  he  speaks  of  it  thus :  "  You  never  equalled  this  effort.  It  surpasses 
rvery  thing  in  logic,  in  simplicity  and  beauty  and  energy  of  diction,  in  clearness, 
in  rebuke,  in  sarcasm,  in  patriotic  and  glowing  feeling,  in  just  and  profound 
constitutional  views.  Jt  is  worth  millions  to  our  liberties." 

2  I  here  give  en  tiro  the  noble  discourse  pronounced  by  Webster  in  the  city 
of  Washington,  on  the  22d  of  February,  1832.    The  occasion  was  as  follows:  A 
number  of  gentlemen,  members  of  Congress  and  others,  united  in  a  public 
dinner  for  the  purpose  of  commemorating  the  centennial  anniversary  of  Wash- 
ington's  birth.    Webster  presided  at  the  dinner,  and  his  address  was  made  after 
the  removal  of  the  cloth. 


4G2  WEBSTER. 

people's  love,  and  the  whole  world's  respect.  That  name,  de- 
scending with  all  time,  spreading  over  the  whole  Earth,  and 
uttered  in  all  the  languages  belonging  to  the  tribes  and  races  of 
men,  will  for  ever  be  pronounced  with  affectionate  gratitude  by 
every  one  in  whose  breast  there  shall  arise  an  aspiration  for 
human  rights  and  human  liberty. 

We  perform  this  grateful  duty,  Gentlemen,  at  the  expiration 
of  a  hundred  years  from  his  birth,  near  the  place  so  cherished 
and  beloved  by  him,  where  his  dust  now  reposes,  and  in  the 
capital  which  bears  his  own  immortal  name. 

All  experience  evinces  that  human  sentiments  are  strongly 
influenced  by  associations.  The  recurrence  of  anniversaries,  or 
of  longer  periods  of  time,  naturally  freshens  the  recollection, 
and  deepens  the  impression,  of  events  with  which  they  are  his- 
torically connected.  Renowned  places,  also,  have  a  power  to 
awaken  feeling,  which  nil  acknowledge.  ]S'o  American  can  pass 
by  the  fields  of  Bunker  Hill,  Monmouth,  or  C'amden,  as  if  they 
were  ordinary  spots  on  the  Earth's  surface.  Whoever  visits 
them  feels  the  sentiment  of  love  of  country  kindling  anew,  as  if 
the  spirit  that  belonged  to  the  transactions  which  have  rendered 
these  places  distinguished  still  hovered  round,  with  power  to 
move  and  excite  all  who  in  future  time  may  approach  them. 

But  neither  of  these  sources  of  emotion  equals  the  power  with 
which  great  moral  examples  affect  the  mind.  When  sublime 
.virtues  cease  to  be  abstractions,  when  they  become  embodied  in 
human  character,  and  exemplified  in  human  conduct,  we  should 
be  false  to  our  own  nature,  if  we  did  not  indulge  in  the  sponta- 
neous effusions  of  our  gratitude  and  our  admiration.  A  true 
lover  of  the  virtue  of  patriotism  delights  to  contemplate  its 
purest  models  ;  and  that  love  of  country  may  be  well  suspected 
which  affects  to  soar  so  high  into  the  regions  of  sentiment  as  to 
be  lost  and  absorbed  in  the  abstract  feeling,  and  becomes  too 
elevated  or  too  refined  to  glow  with  fervour  in  the  commenda- 
tion or  the  love  of  individual  benefactors.  All  this  is  unnatural. 
It  is  as  if  one  should  be  so  enthusiastic  a  lover  of  poetry  as  to 
care  nothing  for  Homer  or  Milton  ;  so  passionately  attached  to 
eloquence  as  to  be  indifferent  to  Tully  and  Chatham ;  or  such  a 
devotee  to  the  arts,  in  such  an  ecstasy  with  the  elements  of 
beauty,  proportion,  and  expression,  as  to  regard  the  master- 
pieces of  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo  with  coldness  or  con- 
tempt. We  may  be  assured,  Gentlemen,  that  he  who  really 
loves  the  thing  itself,  loves  its  finest  exhibitions.  A  true  friend 
of  his  country  loves  her  friends  and  benefactors,  and  thinks  it 
no  degradation  to  commend  and  commemorate  them.  The  vol- 
untary outpouring  of  the  public  feeling,  made  to-day,  from  the 
Xorth  to  the  South,  and  from  the  East  to  the  West,  proves  this 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   WASHINGTON".  463 

sentiment  to  be  both  just  and  natural.  In  the  cities  and  in  the 
villages,  in  the  public  temples  and  in  the  family  circles,  among 
all  ages  and  sexes,  gladdened  voices  to-day  bespeak  grateful 
hearts  and  a  freshened  recollection  of  the  virtues  of  the  Father 
of  his  Country.  And  it  will  be  so,  in  all  time  to  come,  so  long 
as  public  virtue  is  itself  an  object  of  regard.  The  ingenuous 
youth  of  America  will  hold  up  to  themselves  the  bright  model 
of  Washington's  example,  and  study  to  be  what  they  behold  ; 
they  will  contemplate  his  character  till  all  its  virtues  spread  out 
and  display  themselves  to  their  delighted  vision  ;  as  the  earliest 
astronomers,  the  shepherds  on  the  plains  of  Babylon,  gazed  at 
the  stars  till  they  saw  them  form  into  clusters  and  constella- 
tions, overpowering  at  length  the  eyes  of  the  beholders  with  the 
united  blaze  of  a  thousand  lights. 

Gentlemen,  we  are  at  the  point  of  a  century  from  the  birth  of 
Washington;  and  what  a  century  it  has  been!  During  its 
course,  the  human  mind  has  seemed  to  proceed  with  a  sort  of 
geometric  velocity,  accomplishing,  for  human  intelligence  and 
human  freedom,  more  than  had  been  done  in  fives  or  tens  of 
centuries  preceding.  Washington  stands  at  the  commence- 
ment of  a  new  era,  as  well  as  at  the  head  of  the  New  World. 
A  century  from  the  birth  of  Washington  has  changed  the 
world.  The  country  of  Washington  has  been  the  theatre  on 
which  a  great  part  of  that  change  has  been  wrought ;  and  Wash- 
ington himself  a  principal  agent  by  which  it  has  been  accom- 
plished. His  age  and  his  country  are  equally  full  of  wonders  ; 
and  of  both  he  is  the  chief. 

If  the  poetical  prediction,  uttered  a  few  years  before  his 
birth,  be  true  ;  if  indeed  it  be  designed  by  Providence  that  the 
grandest  exhibition  of  human  character  and  human  affairs  shall 
be  made  on  this  theatre  of  the  Western  world ;  if  it  be  true 
that, 

"  The  four  first  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day; 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last"; 

how  could  this  imposing,  swelling,  final  scene  be  appropri- 
ately opened,  how  could  its  intense  interest  be  adequately  sus- 
tained, but  by  the  introduction  of  just  such  a  character  as  our 
Washington  V 

Washington  had  attained  his  manhood  when  that  spark  of 
liberty  was  struck  out  in  his  own  country  which  has  since  kin- 
dled into  a  flame,  and  shot  its  beams  over  the  Earth.  In  the 
flow  of  a  century  from  his  birth,  the  world  has  changed  in 
Hcience,  in  arts,  in  the  extent  of  commerce,  in  the  improvement 
of  navigation,  and  in  all  that  relates  to  the  civilization  of  man. 


464  WEBSTER. 

But  it  is  the  spirit  of  human  freedom,  the  new  elevation  of  indi- 
vidual man,  in  his  moral,  social,  and  political  character,  leading 
the  whole  long  train  of  other  improvements,  which  has  most 
remarkably  distinguished  the  era.  Society,  in  this  century,  has 
not  made  its  progress,  like  Chinese  skill,  by  a  greater  acuteness 
of  ingenuity  in  trifles:  it  has  not  merely  lashed  it-self  to  an 
increased  speed  round  the  old  circles  of  thought  and  action  ; 
but  it  has  assumed  a  new  character ;  it  has  raised  itself  from 
beneath  governments  to  a  participation  in  governments ;  it  has 
mixed  moral  and  political  objects  with  the  daily  pursuits  of 
individual  men;  and,  with  a  freedom  and  strength  before  alto- 
gether unknown,  it  has  applied  to  these  objects  the  whole 
power  of  the  human  understanding.  It  has  been  the  era,  in 
short,  when  the  social  principle  has  triumphed  over  the  feudal 
principle  ;  when  society  has  maintained  its  rights  against  mili- 
tary power,  and  established,  on  foundations  never  hereafter  to 
be  shaken,  its  competency  to  govern  its<>lf. 

It  was  the  extraordinary  fortune  of  Washington,  that,  having 
been  intrusted,  in  revolutionary  times,  with  the  supreme  mili- 
tary command,  and  having  fulfilled  that  trust  with  equal  re- 
nown for  wisdom  and  valour,  he  should  be  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  first  government  in  which  an  attempt  was  to  be  made,  on 
a  large  scale,  to  rear  the  fabric  of  social  order  on  the  basis  of  a 
written  constitution  and  of  a  pure  representative  principle.  A 
government  was  to  be  established,  without  a  throne,  without  an 
aristocracy,  without  castes,  orders,  or  privileges ;  and  this  gov- 
ernment, instead  of  being  a  democracy,  existing  and  acting 
within  the  walls  of  a  single  city,  was  to  be  extended  over  a  vast 
country,  of  different  climates,  interests,  and  habits,  and  of  vari- 
ous communions  of  our  common  Christian  faith.  The  experi- 
ment certainly  was  entirely  new.  A  popular  government  of 
this  extent,  it  was  evident,  could  be  framed  only  by  carrying 
into  full  effect  the  principle  of  representation,  or  of  delegated 
power ;  and  the  world  was  to  see  whether  society  could,  by  the 
strength  of  this  principle,  maintain  its  own  peace  and  good 
government,  carry  forward  its  own  great  interests,  and  conduct 
itself  to  political  renown  and  glory.  By  the  benignity  of  Provi- 
dence, this  experiment,  so  full  of  interest  to  us  and  to  our 
posterity  for  ever,  so  full  of  interest  indeed  to  the  world  in  its 
present  generation  and  in  all  its  generations  to  come,  was  suf- 
fered to  commence  under  the  guidance  of  Washington.  Des- 
tined for  this  high  career,  he  was  fitted  for  it  by  wisdom,  by 
virtue,  by  patriotism,  by  discretion,  by  whatever  can  inspire 
confidence  in  man  toward  man.  In  entering  on  the  untried 
scenes,  early  disappointment  and  the  premature  extinction  of 
all  hope  of  success  would  have  been  certain,  had  it  not  been 


THE   CHARACTER  OF  WASHINGTON.  465 

that  there  did  exist  throughout  the  country,  in  a  most  extraor- 
dinary degree,  an  unwavering  trust  in  HIM  who  stood  at  the 
helm. 

I  remarked,  Gentlemen,  that  the  whole  world  was  and  is 
interested  in  the  result  of  this  experiment.  And  is  it  not  so? 
Do  we  deceive  ourselves,  or  is  it  true  that  at  this  moment  the 
career  which  this  government  is  running  is  among  the  most 
attractive  objects  to  the  civilized  world?  Do  we  deceive  our- 
selves, or  is  it  true  that  at  this  moment  that  love  of  liberty  and 
that  understanding  of  its  true  principles  which  are  flying  over 
the  whole  Earth,  as  on  the  wings  of  all  the  winds,  are  really 
and  truly  of  American  origin? 

At  the  period  of  the  birth  of  Washington,  there  existed  in 
Europe  no  political  liberty,  in  large  communities,  except-  the 
Provinces  of  Holland,  and  except  that  England  herself  had  set 
a  great  example,  so  far  as  it  went,  by  her  glorious  Revolution 
of  1688.  Everywhere  else,  despotic  power  was  predominant, 
and  the  feudal  or  military  principle  held  the  mass  of  mankind 
in  hopeless  bondage.  One  half  of  Europe  was  crushed  by  the 
Bourbon  sceptre,  and  no  conception  of  political  liberty,  no  hope 
even  of  religious  toleration,  existed  among  that  nation  which 
was  America's  first  ally.  The  King  was  the  State,  the  King 
was  the  country,  the  King  was  all.  There  was  one  king,  with 
power  not  derived  from  his  people,  and  too  high  to  be  ques- 
tioned ;  and  the  rest  were  all  subjects,  with  no  political  right 
but  obedience.  All  above  was  intangible  power,  all  below 
quiet  subjection.  A  recent  occurrence  in  the  French  Chambers 
shows  us  how  human  sentifnents  on  these  subjects  have 
changed.  A  Minister  had  spoken  of  the  "King's  subjects." 
"There  are  no  subjects,"  exclaimed  hundreds  of  voices  at  once, 
"in  a  country  where  the  people  make  the  king  1" 

Gentlemen,  the  spirit  of  human  liberty  and  of  free  govern- 
ment, nurtured  and  grown  into  strength  arid  beauty  in  America, 
lias  stretched  its  course  into  the  midst  of  the  nations.  Like  an 
emanation  from  Heaven,  it  has  gone  forth,  and  it  will  not  return 
void.  It  must  change,  it  is  fast  changing,  the  Earth.  Our 
great,  our  high  duty  is  to  show,  in  our  own  example,  that  this 
spirit  is  a  spirit  of  health  as  well  as  a  spirit  of  power  ;  that  its 
benignity  is  as  great  as  its  strength  ;  that  its  efficiency  to  secure 
individual  rights,  social  relations,  and  moral  order,  is  equal  to 
the  irresistible  force  with  which  it  prostrates  principalities  and 
powers.  The  world,  at  this  moment,  is  regarding  us  with  a 
willing,  but  something  of  a  fearful,  admiration.  Its  deep  and 
awful  anxiety  is  to  learn  whether  free  States  may  be  stable,  as 
well  as  free  ;  whether  popular  power  may  be  trusted,  as  well  as 
feared  ;  in  short,  whether  wise,  regular,  and  virtuous  self- 


406  WEBSTER. 

government  is  a  vision  for  the  contemplation  of  theorists,  or  a 
truth,  established,  illustrated,  and  brought  into  practice  in  tho 
country  of  Washington. 

Gentlemen,  for  the  Earth  which  we  inhabit,  and  the  whole 
circle  of  the  Sun,  for  all  the  unborn  races  of  mankind,  w« 
to  hold  in  our  hands,  for  their  weal  or  woe,  the  fate  of  this  ex- 
periment. If  we  fail,  who  shall  venture  the  repetition?  If  our 
example  shall  prove  to  be  one,  not  of  encouragement,  but  of 
terror,  not  fit  to  be  imitated,  but  fit  only  to  be  shunned,  where 
else  shall  the  world  look  for  free  models?  If  this  great  Watt- 
ern  Sun  be  struck  out  of  the  firmament,  at  what  other  fountain 
shall  the  lamp  of  liberty  hereafter  be  lighted  ?  What  other  orb 
shall  emit  a  ray  to  glimmer,  even,  on  the  darkness  of  the 
world  ? 

Gentlemen,  there  is  no  danger  of  our  overrating  or  overstating 
the  important  part  which  we  are  now  acting  in  human  affairs. 
It  should  not  flatter  our  personal  self-respect*  but  it  should 
reanimate  our  patriotic  virtues,  and  inspire  us  with  a  deeper 
and  more  solemn  sense  both  of  our  privileges  and  of  our  duties. 
We  cannot  wish  better  for  our  country,  nor  for  the  world,  than 
that  the  same  spirit  which  influenced  Washington  may  in- 
fluence all  who  succeed  him  ;  and  that  that  same  blessing  from 
above  which  attended  his  efforts  may  also  attend  theirs. 

The  principles  of  Washington's  administration  are  not  left 
doubtful.  They  are  to  be  found  in  the  Constitution  itself,  in 
the  great  measures  recommended  and  approved  by  him,  in  his 
speeches  to  Congress,  and  in  that  most  interesting  paper,  his 
Farewell  Address  to  the  people  of  the  United  States.  The 
success  of  the  government  under  his  administration  is  the  high- 
est proof  of  the  soundness  of  these  principles.  And,  after  an 
experience  of  thirty-five  years,  what  is  there  which  an  enemy 
could  condemn  ?  What  is  there  which  either  his  friends,  or  the 
friends  of  the  country,  could  wish  to  have  been  otherwise  ?  I 
speak,  of  course,  of  great  measures  and  leading  principles. 

In  the  first  place,  all  his  measures  were  right  in  their  intent. 
He  stated  the  whole  basis  of  his  own  great  character,  when  he 
told  the  country,  in  the  homely  phrase  of  the  proverb,  that  hon- 
esty is  the  best  policy.  One  of  the  most  striking  things  ever  said 
of  him  is,  '*  that  he  changed  mankind's  ideas  cf  political  greatness." 
To  commanding  talents,  and  to  success,  the  common  elements 
of  such  greatness,  he  added  a  disregard  of  self,  a  spotlessness 
of  motive,  a  steady  submission  to  every  public  and  private 
duty,  which  threw  far  into  the  shade  the  whole  crowd  of  vulgar 
great.  Tho  object  of  his  regard  was  the  whole  country.  Xo 
part  of  it  was  enough  to  fill  his  enlarged  patriotism.  His  love 
of  glory,  so  far  as  that  may  be  supposed  to  have  influenced  him 


THE   CHARACTER  OF  WASHINGTON.  467 

at  all,  spurned  every  thing  short  of  general  approbation.  It 
would  have  been  nothing  to  him,  that  his  partisans  or  his 
favourites  outnumbered,  or  outvoted,  or  outmanaged,  or  out- 
clamoured,  those  of  other  leaders.  He  had  no  favourites  ;  he 
rejected  all  partisanship  ;  and,  acting  honestly  for  the  universal 
good,  he  deserved,  what  he  has  so  richly  enjoyed,  the  universal 
love. 

His  principle  it  was  to  act  right,  and  to  trust  the  people  for 
support ;  his  principle  it  was  not  to  follow  the  lead  of  sinister 
and  selfish  ends,  and  to  rely  on  the  little  arts  of  party  delusion 
to  obtain  public  sanction  for  such  a  course.  Born  for  his 
country  and  for  the  world,  he  did  not  give  up  to  party  what 
was  meant  for  mankind.  The  consequence  is,  that  his  fame  is 
as  durable  as  his  principles,  as  lasting  as  truth  and  virtue  them- 
selves. While  the  hundreds  whom  party  excitement  and  tem- 
porary circumstances  and  casual  combinations  have  raised  into 
transient  notoriety,  sink  again,  like  thin  bubbles,  bursting  and 
dissolving  into  the  great  ocean,  Washington's  fame  is  like  the 
rock  which  bounds  that  ocean,  and  at  whose  feet  its  billows  are 
destined  to  break  harmlessly  for  ever. 

The  maxims  upon  which  Washington  conducted  our  foreign 
relations  were  few  and  simple.  The  first  was  an  entire  and 
indisputable  impartiality  towards  foreign  States.  lie  adhered 
to  this  rule  of  public  conduct,  against  very  strong  inducements 
to  depart  from  it,  and  when  the  popularity  of  the  moment 
seemed  to  favour  such  a  departure.  In  the  next  place,  he 
maintained  true  dignity  and  unsullied  honour  in  all  communica- 
tions with  foreign  States.  It  was  among  the  high  duties  de- 
volved upon  him,  to  introduce  our  new  government  into  the 
circle  of  civilized  States  and  powerful  nations.  Not  arrogant 
or  assuming,  with  no  unbecoming  or  supercilious  bearing,  ho 
yet  exacted  for  it  from  all  others  entire  and  punctilious  respect. 
lie  demanded,  and  he  obtained  at  once,  a  standing  of  perfect 
equality  for  his  country  in  the  society  of  nations ;  nor  was 
there  a  prince  or  potentate  of  his  day,  whose  personal  character 
carried  with  it,  into  the  intercourse  with  other  States,  a  greater 
degree  of  respect  and  veneration. 

He  regarded  other  nations  only  as  they  stood  in  political 
relations  to  us.  With  their  internal  affairs,  their  political 
parties  and  dissensions,  he  scrupulously  abstained  from  all 
interference  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  spiritedly  repelled  all 
such  interference  by  others  with  us  or  our  concerns.  His 
sternest  rebuke— the  most  indignant  measure  of  his  whole 
administration  — was  aimed  against  such  an  attempted  interfer- 
ence. He  felt  it  as  an  attempt  to  wound  the  national  honour, 
and  resented  it  accordingly. 


468  WEBSTER. 

The  reiterated  admonitions  in  his  Farewell  Address  show  his 
deep  fears  that  foreign  influence  would  insinuate  itself  into  our 
councils  through  the  channels  of  domestic  dissensions,  and 
obtain  a  sympathy  with  our  own  temporary  parties.  Against  all 
such  dangers,  he  most  earnestly  entreats  the  country  to  guard 
itself.  He  appeals  to  its  patriotism,  to  its  self-respect,  to  its 
own  honour,  to  every  consideration  connected  with  its  welfare 
and  happiness,  to  resist,  at  the  very  beginning,  all  tendencies 
towards  such  connection  of  foreign  interests  with  our  own 
affairs.  With  a  tone  of  earnestness  nowhere  else  found,  even 
in  his  last  affectionate  farewell  advice  to  his  countrymen,  he 
says  :  "Against  the  insidious  wiles  of  foreign  influence,- (I  con- 
jure you  to  believe  me,  fellow-citizens),  the  jealousy  of  a  free 
people  ought  to  be  constantly  awake  ;  since  history  and  experi- 
ence prove  that  foreign  influence  is  one  of  the  most  baneful 
foes  of  republican  government." 

Lastly,  on  the  subject  of  foreign  relations,  Washington  never 
forgot  that  we  had  interests  peculiar  to  ourselves.  The  pri- 
mary political  concerns  of  Europe,  he  saw,  did  not  affect  us. 
We  had  nothing  to  do  with  her  balance  of  power,  her  family 
compacts,  or  her  successions  to  thrones.  We  were  placed  in  a 
condition  favourable  to  neutrality  during  European  wars,  and 
to  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  great  advantages  of  that  relation. 
"Why,  then,"  he  asks  us,  "  why  forego  the  advantages  of  so 
peculiar  a  situation  ?  Why  quit  our  own  to  stand  upon  foreign 
ground?  Why,  by  interweaving  our  destiny  with  that  of  any 
pait  of  Europe,  entangle  our  peace  and  prosperity  in  the 
toils  of  European  ambition,  rivalship,  interest,  humour,  or 
caprice?" 

Indeed,  Gentlemen,  Washington's  Farewell  Address  is  full  of 
truths  important  at  all  times,  and  particularly  deserving  consid- 
eration at  the  present.  With  a  sagacity  which  brought  the 
future  before  him,  and  made  it  like  the  present,  he  saw  and 
pointed  out  the  dangers  that  even  at  this  moment  most  immi- 
nently threaten  us.  I  hardly  know  how  a  greater  service  of 
that  kind  could  now  be  done  to  the  community,  than  by  a 
renewed  and  wide  diffusion  of  that  admirable  paper,  and  an 
earnest  invitation  to  every  man  in  the  country  to  reperuse  and 
consider  it.  Its  political  maxims  are  invaluable  ;  its  exhortation 
to  love  of  country  and  to  brotherly  affection  among  citizens, 
touching  ;  and  the  solemnity  with  which  it  urges  the  observance 
of  moral  duties,  and  impresses  the  power  of  religious  obligation, 
gives  to  it  the  highest  character  of  truly  disinterested,  sincere, 
parental  advice. 

The  domestic  policy  of  Washington  found  its  pole-star  in  the 
avowed  objects  of  the  Constitution  itself.  He  sought  so  to  ad- 


THE   CHARACTER  OE  WASHINGTON.  469 

minister  that  Constitution  as  to  form  a  more  perfect  union, 
establish  justice,  ensure  domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the 
common  defence,  promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the 
blessings  of  liberty.  These  were  objects  interesting,  in  the 
highest  degree,  to  the  whole  country,  and  his  policy  embraced 
the  whole  country. 

Among  his  earliest  and  most  important  duties  was  the  organi- 
zation of  the  government  itself,  the  choice  of  his  confidential 
advisers,  and  the  various  appointments  to  office.  This  duty,  so 
important  and  delicate,  when  a  whole  government  was  to  be 
organized,  and  all  its  offices  for  the  first  time  filled,  was  yet  not 
difficult  to  him;  for  he  had  no  sinister  ends  to  accomplish,  no 
clamorous  partisans  to  gratify,  no  pledges  to  redeem,  no  object 
to  be  regarded,  but  simply  the  public  good.  It  was  a  plain, 
straight  forward  matter, —  a  mere  honest  choice  of  good  men  for 
the  public  service. 

His  own  singleness  of  purpose,  his  disinterested  patriotism, 
were  evinced  by  the  selection  of  his  first  cabinet,  and  by  the 
manner  in  which  he  filled  the  seats  of  Justice,  and  other  places 
of  high  trust.  lie  sought  for  men  fit  for  offices  ;  not  for  offices 
which  might  suit  men.  Above  personal  considerations,  above 
local  considerations,  above  party  considerations,  he  felt  that  he 
could  only  discharge  the  sacred  trust,  which  the  country  had 
placed  in  his  hands,  by  a  diligent  inquiry  after  real  merit,  and  a 
conscientious  preference  of  virtue  and  talent.  The  whole  coun- 
try was  the  field  of  his  selection*  lie  explored  that  whole  field, 
looking  only  for  whatever  it  contained  most  worthy  and  distin- 
guished. Ho  was,  indeed,  most  successful,  and  he  deserved 
success  for  the  purity  of  his  motives,  the  liberality  of  his  senti- 
ments, and  his  enlarged  and  manly  policy. 

Washington's  administration  established  the  national  credit, 

made  provision  for  the  public  debt,  and  for  that  patriotic  army 

interests  and  welfare  were  always  so  dear  to  him  ;  and, 

by  laws  wisely  framed,  and  of  admirable  effect,  raised  the  com- 

and  navigation  of  the  country,  almost  at  once,  from  de- 

iii  and  ruin  to  a  state  of  prosperity.    Nor  were  his  eyes 

open  to  these  interests  alone.    He  viewed  with  equal  concern 

iculture  and  manufactures,  and,  so  far  as  they  came  within 

the  regular  exercise  of  the  powers  of  this  government,  they 

rienced  regard  and  favour. 

Jt  should  not  he  omitted,  even  in  this  slight  reference  to  the 
general  measures  and  general  principles  of  the  first  President, 
that  he  saw  and  felt  the  full  value  and  importance  of  the  judi- 
cial department  of  the  government.  An  upright  and  able  ad- 
ministration of  the  laws  he  held  to  be  alike  indispensable  to 
private  happiness  and  public  liberty.  The  Temple  of  Justice, 


470  WEBSTER. 

in  his  judgment,  was  a  sacred  place,  and  he  would  profane  and 
pollute  it  who  should  assign" any  to  minister  in  it,  not  spotless 
in  character,  not  incorruptible  in  integrity,  not  competent  by 
talent  and  learning,  not  a  fit  object  of  unhesitating  trust. 

Among  other  admonitions,  Washington  has  left  us,  in  his  last 
communication  to  his  country,  an  exhortation  against  the  ex- 
cesses of  party  spirit.  A  fire  not  to  be  quenched,  he  yet  con- 
jures us  not  to  fan  and  feed  the  ilame.  Undoubtedly,  Gentle- 
men, it  is  the  greatest  danger  of  our  system  and  of  our  time. 
"Undoubtedly,  if  that  system  should  be  overthrown,  it  will  be 
the  work  of  excessive  party  spirit,  acting  on  the  government, 
which  is  dangerous  enough,  or  noting  in  the  government,  which 
is  a  thousand  times  more  dangerous;  for  government  then 
becomes  nothing  but  organized  party,  and.  in  the  straimv  vicis- 
situdes of  human  affairs,  it  may  come  at  last,  perhaps,  to  exhibit 
the  singular  paradox  of  government  itself  being  in  opposition 
to  its  own  powers,  at  war  with  the  very  elements  of  its  own 
existence.  Such  cases  are  hopeless.  As  men  may  lie  protected 
against  murder,  but  cannot  be  guarded  a-aiiist  suicide,  so  gov- 
ernment may  be  shielded  from  the  assaults  of  external  foe>, 
but  nothing  can  save  it  when  it  chooses  to  lay  violent  hands  on 

itself. 

Finally,  Gentlemen,  there  was  in  the  brea>t  of  Washington 
one  sentiment  so  deeply  felt,  so  constantly  uppermost,  that  no 
proper  occasion  escaped  without  its  utterance.  From  tin1  lei- 
ter  which  he  signed  in  behalf  of  the  Convention  when  the  Con- 
stitution was  sent  out  to  the  people,  to  the  moment  when  he 
put  his  hand  to  that  last  paper  in  which  he  addressed  his 
countrymen,  the  Union  —  the  Union  was  the  great  object  of  his 
thoughts.  In  that  first  letter,  he  tells  them  that,  to  him  anil 
his  brethren  of  the  Convention,  union  appears  to  be  the  great- 
est interest  of  every  true  American  ;  and  in  that  last  paper,  he 
conjures  them  to  regard  that  unity  of  government  which  con- 
stitutes them  one  people  as  the  very  palladium  of  their  pros- 
perity and  safety,  and  the  security  of  liberty  itself.  He  re- 
garded the  union  of  these  States  less  as  one  of  our  blessings, 
than  as  the  great  treasure-house  which  contained  them  all. 
Here,  in  his  judgment,  was  the  great  magazine  of  all  our  means 
of  prosperity  ;  here,  as  he  thought,  and  as  every  American  still 
thinks,  are  deposited  all  our  animating  prospects,  all  our  solid 
hopes  for  future  greatness.  He  has  taught  us  to  maintain  this 
union,  not  by  seeking  to  enlarge  the  powers  of  the  government, 
on  the  one  hand,  nor  by  surrendering  them,  on  the  other  ;  but 
by  an  administration  of  them  at  oneo  firm  and  moderate,  pur- 
suing objects  truly  national,  and  carried  on  in  a  spirit  of  justice 
equity.  The  extreme  solicitude  for  the  preservation  of  the 


THE   CHARACTER  OF   WASHINGTON".  471 

Union,  at  all  times  manifested  by  him,  shows  not  only  the 
opinion  he  entertained  of  its  importance,  but  his  clear  percep- 
tion of  those  causes  which  were  likely  to  spring  up  to  endanger 
it>  and  which,  if  once  they  should  overthrow  the  present  sys- 
tem, would  leave  little  hope  of  any  future  beneficial  reunion. 
Of  all  the  presumptions  indulged  by  presumptuous  man,  that 
is  one  of  the  rashest  which  looks  for  repeated  and  favourable 
opportunities  for  the  deliberate  establishment  of  a  united  gov- 
ernment over  distinct  and  widely-extended  communities.  Such 
a  thing  has  happened  once  in  human  affairs,  and  but  once  :  Hie 
event  stands  out  as  a  prominent  exception  to  all  ordinary 
history ;  and  unless  we  .suppose  ourselves  running  into  an  age 
of  miracles,  we  may  not  expect  its  repetition. 

Washington,  therefore,  could  regard,  and  did  regard,  nothing 
as  of  paramount  political  interest,  but  the  integrity  of  the 
Union  itself.  With  a  united  government,  well  administered, 
he  saw  we  had  nothing  to  fear  ;  and  without  it,  nothing  to  hope. 
The  sentiment  is  just,  and  its  momentous  truth  should  solemnly 
impress  the  whole  country.  If  we  might  regard  our  country 
as  personated  in  the  spirit  of  Washington,  if  \ve  might  consider 
him  as  representing  her,  in  her  past  renown,  her  present  pros- 
perity, and  her  future  career,  and  as  in  that  character  demand- 
ing of  us  all  to  account  for  our  conduct,  as  political  men  or  as 
private  citizens,  how  should  he  answer  him  who  has  \vntured 
to  talk  of  disunion  and  dismemberment?  Or  how  should  ho 
answer  him  who  dwells  perpetually  on  local  interests,  and  fans 
every  kindling  flame  of  local  prejudice?  How  should  he  an- 
swer him  who  would  array  State  against  State,  interest  against 
interest,  and  party  against  party,  careless  of  the  continuance  of 
that  uniti/  of  government  which  constitutes  us  one  pcojili  / 

The  political  prosperity  which  this  country  has  attained,  and 
which  it  now  enjoys,  it  has  acquired  mainly  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  present  government.  While  this  agent  con- 
tinues, the;  capacity  of  attaining  to  still  higher  degrees  of  pros- 
perity exists  also.  We  have,  while  this  lasts,  a  political  life 
capable  of  beneficial  exertion,  with  power  to  resistor  overeouie 
i  tunes,  to  sustain  us  against  the  ordinary  accidents  of 
human  affairs,  and  to  promote,  by  active  efforts,  every  public 
-t.  But  dismemberment  strikes  at  the  very  being  which 
•vcs  these  faculties.  It  would  lay  its  rude  and  ruthless 
hand  on  this  great  agent  itself.  It  would  sweep  away,  not  only 
what  we  possess,  but  all  power  of  regaining  lost,  or  acquiring 
new  possessions.  It  would  leave  the  country,  not  only  bereft 
ol  its  prosperity  and  happiness,  but  without  limbs,  or  organs,  or 
families,  by  which  to  exert  itself  hereafter  in  the  pursuit  of 
that  prosperity  and  happiness. 


472  WEBSTER. 

Other  misfortunes  may  be  borne,  or  their  effects  overcome. 
If  disastrous  war  should  sweep  our  commerce  from  the  ocean, 
another  generation  may  renew  it;  if  it  exhaust  our  treasury, 
future  inilu>try  may  replenish  it;  if  it  desolate  and  lay  waste 
our  fields  still,  under  anew  cultivation,  they  will  grow  green 
again,  and  ripen  to  future  harvests.  It  were  but  a  trille  even  if 
the  walN  of  yonder  Capitol  were  to  crumble,  if  its  lofty  pillars 
should  fall,  audits  gorgeous  decorations  be  all  covered  by  the 
dust  of  the  valley.  All  these  might  be  rebuilt.  Hut  who  shall 
reconstruct  the  fabric"  of  demolished  government?  Who  shall 
real-  again  the  well-proportioned  columns  of  constitutional  lib- 
erty? Who  shall  frame  together  the  skilful  architecture  which 
unites  national  sovereignty  with  State  rights,  individual  secu- 
rity, and  public  prosperity?  Xo,  Gentlemen,  if  these  columns 
fall,  they  will  not  be  raised  again.  Like  the  Coliseum  and  the 
Parthenon,  they  will  be  destined  to  a  mournful,  a  melancholy 
immortality.  Bitterer  tears,  however,  will  How  over  them  than 
were  ever  .-lied  over  the  monuments  of  Uoman  or  Grecian  art; 
for  they  will  be  the  remnants  of  a  more  glorious  edifice  than 
Greece  or  Home  ever  saw, —  the  edifice  of  constitutional  Amer- 
ican liberty. 

But  let  us  hope  for  better  things.  Let  us  trust  in  that  gra- 
cious ]>eing  who  has  hitherto  held  our  country  as  in  the  hollow 
of  His  hand.  Let  us  trust  to  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  the 
people,  and  to  the  ellicacy  of  religious  obligation.  Let  us  trust 
to  the  inlluence  of  Washington's  example.  Let  us  hope  that  that 
fear  of  Heaven  which  expels  all  other  fear,  and  that  regard  to 
duty  which  transcends  all  other  regard,  may  inlltience  public 
men  and  private  citizens,  and  lead  our  country  still  onward  in 
her  happy  career.  Full  of  these  gratifying  anticipations  and 
hopes,  let  us  look  forward  to  the  end  of  that  century  which  is 
commenced.  A  hundred  years  hence,  other  disciples  of  Wa^h- 
ington  will  celebrate  his  birth  with  no  less  of  sincere  admiration 
than  we  now  commemorate  it.  When  they  shall  meet,  as  we  now 
meet,  to  do  themselves  and  him  the  honour,  so  surely  as  they 
shall  see  the  blue  summits  of  his  native  mountains  rise  in  the 
horizon  ;  so  surely  as  they  shall  behold  the  river  on  whose  banks 
lie  lived,  and  on  whose  banks  he  rests,  still  llowing  on  toward 
the  sea,— so  surely  may  they  see,  as  we  now  see,  the  Hag  of  the 
Union  iloating  on  the  top  of  the  Capitol;  and  then,  as  now, 
may  the  Sun,  in  its  course,  visit  no  land  more  free,  more  happy, 
more  lovely,  than  this  our  own  country  1 

Gentlemen,  I  propose  — "TuE  MEMORY  OF  GEORGE  WASII- 
IXGTON." 


ALEXANDER   HAMILTON".  473 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON.8 

GENTLEMEN,  you  have  personal  recollections  and  associa- 
tions, connected  with  the  establishment  and  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  which  aiv  necessarily  called  up  on  an  occasion  like 
this.  It  is  impossible  to  forget  the  prominent  agency  exer- 
cised by  eminent  citizens  of  your  own,  in  regard  to  that  great 
measure.  Those  great  men  are  now  recorded  among  the  illus- 
trious dead ;  but  they  have  left  names  never  to  be  forgotten, 
and  never  to  be  remembered  without  respect  and  veneration. 
Least  of  all  can  they  be  forgotten  by  you,  when  assembled  here 
for  the  purpose  of  signifying  your  attachment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  your  sense  of  its  inestimable  importance  to  the  happi- 
ness of  the  people. 

I  should  do  violence  to  my  own  feelings,  Gentlemen, — I  think 
I  should  offend  yours, —  if  I  omitted  respectful  mention  of  dis- 
tinguished names  yet  fresh  in  your  recollections.  How  can  I 
stand  here,  to  speak  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
of  the  wisdom  of  its  provisions,  of  the  difficulties  attending  its 
adoption,  of  the  evils  from  which  it  rescued  the  country,  and  of 
the  prosperity  and  power  to  which  it  has  raised  it,  and  yet  pay 
no  tribute  to  those  who  were  highly  instrumental  in  accomplish- 
ing the  work?  While  we  arc  here  to  rejoice  that  it  yet  stands 
linn  ami  strong,  while  we  congratulate  one  another  that  we  live 
under  its  benign  influence,  and  cherish  hopes  of  its  long  dura- 
tion, \ve  cannot  forget  who  they  were  that,  in  the  day  of  our  na- 
tional infancy,  in  the  times  of  despondency  and  despair,  mainly 
•d  to  work  out  our  deliverance.  I  should  feel  that  I  was 
unfaithful  to  the  strong  recollections  which  the  occasion  presses 
upon  us,  that  I  was  not  true  to  gratitude,  not  true  to  patriotism, 
not  true  to  the  living  or  the  dead,  not  true  to  your  feelings  or 
my  own,  if  I  should  forbear  to  make  mention  of  ALEXANDKII 
HAMILTON. 

( 'oining  from  the  military  service  of  the  country  yet  a  youth, 
but  with  knowledge  and  maturity,  even  in  civil  affairs,  far  be- 
yond his  years,  he  made  this  city  the  place  of  his  adoption  ;  and 
e,  the  whole  powers  of  his  mind  to  the  contemplation  of 
the  weak  and  distracted  condition  of  the  country.  Daily  in- 
creasing in  acquaintance  and  conlidence  with  the  people  of  New 
York,  lie  saw,  what  they  also  saw,  the  absolute  necessity  of  some 
bond  of  union  for  the  States.  This  was  the  great  object 
of  his  desire.  He  never  appears  to  have  lost  sight  of  it,  but 
Mind  in  the  lead  whenever  any  thing  was  to  be  attempted 

:;  Ki-'iin  :i  speech  m:nl<!  lit,  a  public  dinner  given  to  Webster  in  Now  York,  on 
the  JOtli  of  March,  1-.51.  See  page  3*3,  note  7. 


474  WEBSTER. 

for  its  accomplishment.  One  experiment  after  another,  as  is 
well  known,  was  tried,  and  all  failed.  The  States  were  urgently 
railed  on  to  confer  such  further  powers  on  the  old  Congress  as 
would  enable  it  to  redeem  Hie  public  faith,  or  to  adopt,  them- 
selves, some  general  and  common  principle  of  commercial  reg- 
ulation. But  the  States  h;id  not  agreed,  and  were  not  likely 
to  agree.  In  this  posture  of  affairs,  so  full  of  public  difficulty 
and  public  distress,  commissioners  from  five  or  six  of  the  States 
met,  on  the  request  of  Virginia,  at  Annapolis,  in  September, 
178G.  The  precise  object  of  their  appointment  was  to  take  into 
consideration  the  trade  of  the  United  States  ;  to  examine  the 
relative  situations  and  trade  of  the  several  States;  and  to  con- 
sider how  far  a  uniform  system  of  commercial  regulations  was 
necessary  to  their  common  interest  and  permanent  harmony. 
Mr.  Hamilton  was  one  of  these  commis>iouers  ;  and  I  have  un- 
derstood, though  I  cannot  assert  the  fact,  that  their  Jfcjmrl  was 
drawn  by  him.  His  associate  from  this  State  was  the  venerable 
Judge  Benson,  who  has  lived  long,  and  still  lives,  to  see  tin- 
happy  results  of  the  counsels  which  originated  in  this  meeting. 
Of  its  members,  he  and  Mr.  Madison  are,  I  believe,  now  tho 
only  survivors.  These  commissioners  recommended,  what  took 
place  the  next  year,  a  general  Convention  of  all  the  States,  to 
take  into  serious  deliberation  the  condition  of  the  country,  and 
devise  such  provisions  as  should  render  the  constitution  of  the 
federal  government  adequate  to  the  exigencies  of  the  Union.  I 
need  not  remind  you,  that  of  this  Convention  Mr.  Hamilton  was 
an  active  and  efficient  member.  The  Constitution  was  framed, 
and  submitted  to  the  country.  And  then  another  great  work 
was  to  be  undertaken.  The  Constitution  would  naturally  find, 
and  did  find,  enemies  and  opposers.  Objections  to  it  were  numer- 
ous, and  powerful,  and  spirited.  These  were  to  bo  answered  ; 
and  they  were  effectually  answered.  The  writers  of  the  num- 
bers of  The  Federalist,  Mr.  Hamilton,  Mr.  Madison,  and  Mr.  Jay, 
so  greatly  distinguished  themselves  in  their  discussions  of  the 
Constitution,  that  those  numbers  are  generally  received  as  im- 
portant commentaries  on  the  text,  and  accurate  expositions,  in 
general,  of  its  objects  and  purposes.  Those  papers  were  all 
written  and  published  in  this  city.  Mr.  Hamilton  was  elected 
one  of  the  distinguished  delegation  from  the  city,  into  the  state 
Convention  at  Poughkeepsie,  called  to  ratify  the  new  Constitu- 
tion. Its  debates  are  published.  Mr.  Hamilton  appears  to  have 
exerted,  on  this  occasion,  to  the  utmost,  every  power  and  fac- 
ulty of  his  mind. 

The  whole  question  was  likely  to  depend  on  the  decision  of 
Xew  York,  lie  felt  the  full  importance  of  the  crisis;  and  the 
reports  of  his  speeches,  imperfect  as  they  probably  are,  are  vet 


FIRST  SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW   ENGLAND.  475 

lasting  monuments  to  his  genius  and  patriotism.  lie  saw  at  last 
his  hopes  fulfilled ;  he  saw  the  Constitution  adopted,  and  the 
government  under  it  established  and  organized.  The  discern- 
ing eye  of  Washington  immediately  called  him  to  that  post 
which  was  infinitely  the  most  important  in  the  administration 
of  the  new  system.  He  was  made  Secretary  of  the  Treasury ; 
and  how  he  fulfilled  the  duties  of  such  a  place,  at  such  a  time, 
the  whole  country  perceived  with  delight,  and  the  whole  world 
saw  with  admiration.  He  smote  the  rock  of  the  national  re- 
sources, and  abundant  streams  of  revenue  gushed  forth.  He 
touched  the  dead  corpse  of  the  Public  Credit,  and  it  sprang 
upon  its  feet.  The  fabled  birtli  of  Minerva  from  the  brain  of 
Jove  was  hardly  more  sudden  or  more  perfect  than  the  finan- 
cial system  of  the  United  States,  as  it  burst  forth  from  the  con- 
ceptions of  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON. 


FIRST  SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW  ENGLAND.4 

IT  is  a  noble  faculty  of  our  nature  which  enables  us  to  con- 
nect our  thoughts,  our  sympathies,  and  our  happiness  with 
what  is  distant  in  place  or  time  ;  and,  looking  before  and  sifter, 
to  hold  communication  at  once  with  our  ancestors  and  our  pos- 
terity. Human  and  mortal  though  we  are,  we  are  nevertheless 
not  mere  insulated  beings,  without  relation  to  the  past  or  the 
future.  Neither  the  point  of  time  nor  the  spot  of  rarth,  in 
which  we  physically  live,  bounds  our  rational  and  intellectual 
enjoyments.  We  live  in  the  past  by  a  knowledge  of  its  "his- 
tory ;  and  in  the  future  by  hope  and  anticipation.  I5y  ascend- 
ing to  an  association  with  our  ancestors ;  by  contemplating 

4  This  and  the  three  pieces  which  follow  it  .ire  from  a  discourse  delivered  at 
Plymouth,  on  the  22d  of  December,  1820,  UK;  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
landing  of  tlie  Pilgrims.  That  discourse  stands  first,  in  the  order  of  time,  of 
•a  great  efforts  in  wh:it  m:iy  be  called  civic,  oratory,  and  is  generally 
n-.u'arded,  I  believe',  as  UK;  corner-stone  of  his  lame  as  an  orator.  The  discourse 
was  not  printed  till  about  a  year  after  the  delivery.  A  copy  of  it  having  been 
mailed  to  Chancellor  Kent,  of  New  York,  that  eminent  man  acknowledged  (.lie 
receipt  of  it  in  a  letter  of  thanks  to  Webster,  from  which  I  transcribe  the  follow- 
ing: "The  reflections,  the  sentiments,  the  morals,  the  patriotism, the  eloquence, 
the  imagination  of  this  admirable  production  are  exactly  what  I  anticipated; 
elevated,  just,  and  true.  I  think  it  is  also  embellished  by  a  style  distinguished 
for  purity,  taste,  and  simplicity."  Ex-President  John  Adams,  also,  had  the  dis- 
course read  to  him,  and  expressed  his  judgment  of  it  thus:  "If  there  be  an 
American  who  can  read  it  without  tears,  1  am  not  that  American.  Jt  enters 
more  perfectly  into  the  genuine  spirit  of  New  England  than  any  production  I 
ever  read." 


47G  WEBSTER. 

their  example  and  studying  their  character ;  by  partaking  their 
sentiments  and  imbibing  their  spirit ;  by  accompanying  them  in 
their  toils,  by  sympathizing  in  their  sufferings,  and  rejoicing  in 
their  successes  mid  triumphs, —  we  seem  to  bcl«mg  to  their  age, 
and  to  mingle  our  own  existence  with  theirs.  We  become  their 
contemporaries,  live  the  lives  which  they  lived,  endure  what 
they  endured,  and  partake  the  rewards  which  they  enjoyed. 
And  in  like  manner,  by  running  along  the  line  of  future  time  ; 
by  contemplating  the  probable  fortunes  of  those  who  arc 
coming  after  us  ;  by  attempting  something  which  may  promote 
their  happiness,  and  leave  some  not  dishonourable  memorial  of 
ourselves  to  their  regard,  when  we  shall  sleep  with  the  fathers, 
—  we  protract  our  own  earthly  being,  and  seem  to  crowd  what- 
ever is  future,  as  well  as  the  past,  into  the  narrow  compass  of 
our  earthly  existence.  As  it  is  not  a  vain  and  false,  but  an 
exalted  and  religious  imagination,  which  leads  us  to  rai.-c  our 
thoughts  from  the  orb  which,  amidst  this  universe  of  worlds, 
the  Creator  has  given  us  to  inhabit,  and  to  send  them,  with 
something  of  the  feeling  which  Nature  prompts,  and  teaches  to 
be  proper  among  children  of  the  same  Kternal  Parent,  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  myriads  of  fellow-beings  with  which  His 
goodness  has  peopled  the  infinite  of  space  ;  so  neither  is  it  false 
or  vain  to  consider  ourselves  as  interoted  and  connected  with 
our  whole  race,  through  all  time;  allied  to  our  ancestor-; 
allied  to  our  posterity;  closely  compacted  on  all  sides;  our- 
selves being  but  links  in  the  great  chain  of  being  which  begins 
with  the  origin  of  our  race,  runs  onward  through  its  succi -,-<i\ c 
generations,  binding  together  the  past,  the  present,  and  the 
future,  and  terminating  at  last,  with  the  consummation  of  all 
things  earthly,  at  the  throne  of  God. 

There  may  be,  and  there  often  is,  indeed,  a  regard  for  an- 
cestry, which  nourishes  only  a  weak  pride;  as  there  is  also  a 
care  for  posterity,  which  only  disguises  an  habitual  avarice, 
or  hides  the  workings  of  a  low  and  grovelling  vanity.  But 
there  is  also  a  moral  and  philosophical  respect  for  our  ances- 
tors, which  elevates  the  character  and  improves  the  heart. 
Next  to  the  sense  of  religious  duty  and  moral  feeling,  I  hardly 
know  what  should  bear  with  stronger  obligation  on  a  liberal 
and  enlightened  mind,  than  a  consciousness  of  alliance  with 
excellence  which  is  departed.  Poetry  is  found  to  have  few 
stronger  conceptions,  by  which  it  would  affect  or  overwhelm 
the  mind,  than  those  in  which  it  presents  the  moving  and 
speaking  image  of  the  departed  dead  to  the  senses  of  the  living. 
This  belongs  to  poetry,  only  because  it  is  congenial  to  our 
nature.  Poetry  is,  in  this  respect,  but  the  handmaid  of  true 
philosophy  and  morality :  it  deals  with  us  as  human  beings, 


FIRST  SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW  ENGLAND.  477 

naturally  reverencing  those  whose  visible  connection  with  this 
state  of  existence  is  severed,  and  who  may  yet  exercise  we 
know  not  what  sympathy  with  ourselves  ;  and  when  it  carries 
us  forward,  also,  and  shows  us  the  long-continued  result  of  all 
the  good  we  do,  in  the  prosperity  of  those  who  follow  us,  till 
it  bears  us  from  ourselves,  and  absorbs  us  in  an  intense  interest 
for  what  shall  happen  to  the  generations  after  us,  it  speaks  only 
the  language  of  our  nature,  and  affects  us  with  the  sentiments 
which  belong  to  us  as  human  beings. 

Standing  in  this  relation  to  our  ancestors  and  our  posterity, 
we  are  assembled  on  this  memorable  spot  to  perform  the  duties 
which  that  relation  and  the  present  occasion  impose  upon  us. 
Wo  have  come  to  this  Rock,  to  record  here  our  homage  for  our 
Pilgrim  Fathers;  our  sympathy  in  their  sufferings;  our  grati- 
tude for  their  labours  ;  our  admiration  of  their  virtues  ;  our 
veneration  for  their  piety  ;  and  our  attachment  to  those  princi- 
ples of  civil  and  religious  liberty  which  they  encountered  tlio 
dangers  of  the  ocean,  the  storms  of  heaven,  the  violence  of 
sav;i:4>->,  disease,  exile,  and  famine,  to  enjoy  and  to  establish. 
And  we  would  leave  here,  also,  for  the  generations  which  arc 
rising  up  rapidly  to  fill  our  places,  some  proof  that  we  have 
endeavoured  to  transmit  the  great  inheritance  unimpaired;  that 
in  our  estimate  of  public  principles  and  private  virtue,  in  our 
veneration  of  religion  arid  piety,  in  our  devotion  to  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  in  our  regard  for  whatever  advances  human 
knowledge,  or  improves  human  happiness,  we  are  not  altogether 
mi  worthy  of  our  origin. 

There  is  a  local  feeling  connected  with  this  occasion,  too 
strong  to  be  resisted  ;  a  sort  of  genius  oftheplace,  which  inspires 
and  awes  us.  We  i'eel  that  we  are  on  the  spot  where  the  iirst 
scene  of  our  history  was  laid  ;  where  the  hearths  and  altars  of 
Ni-w  Knglaml  were  first  placed ;  where  Christianity  and  civili- 
sation and  letters  made  their  first  lodgment,  in  a  vast  extent  of 
country,  covered  with  a  wilderness,  and  peopled  by  roving  bar- 
barians. We  are  hero  at  the  season  of  the  year  at  which  the 
event  took  place.  The  imagination  irresistibly  and  rapidly 
draws  around  us  the  principal  features  and  the  leading  charac- 
ters in  the  original  scene.  Wo  cast  our  eyes  abroad  on  the 
ocean,  and  we  see  where  the  little  bark,  with  the  interesting 
group  upon  its  deck,  made  its  slow  progress  to  the  shore.  Wo 
look  around  us,  and  behold  the  hills  and  promontories  where 
the  anxious  eyes  of  our  fat  hers  iirst  saw  the  places  of  habita- 
tion and  of  rest.  We  feel  the  cold  which  benumbed,  and  listen 
to  the  winds  which  pierced  them.  Beneath  us  is  the  Rock  on 
which  New  England  received  the  feet  of  the  I'ilgrims.  Wo 
•eem  even  to  behold  them,  as  they  struggle,  with  the  elements, 


478  WEBSTER. 

and,  with  toilsome  efforts,  gain  the  shore.  "We  listen  to  the 
chiefs  in  council;  we  see  the  unexampled  exhibition  of  female 
fortitude  and  resignation  ;  we  hear  the  winterings  of  youthful 
impatience,  and  we  see,  what  a  painter  of  our  own  has  also  rep- 
resented by  his  pencil,5  chilled  and  shivering  childhood,  house- 
less, but  for  a  mother's  arms,  couchless,  but  for  a  mother's 
breast,  till  our  own  blood  almost  freezes.  The  mild  dignity  of 
CARVKI:  and  BRADFORD;  the  decisive  and  soldierlike  air  and 
manner  of  STAXDISH  ;  the  devout  BRETVSTER;  the  enterpris- 
ing ALLERTOX;  the  general  firmness  and  thoughtfulne^s  of 
the  whole  band  ;  their  conscious  joy  for  dangers  escaped  ;  their 
deep  solicitude  about  dangers  to  come  ;  their  trust  in  Heaven  ; 
their  high  religious  faith,  full  of  confidence  and  anticipation, — 
all  of  these  seem  to  belong  to  this  place,  and  to  be  present  on 
this  occasion,  to  fill  us  with  reverence  and  admiration. 

The  settlement  of  New  England  by  the  colony  which  landed 
here  on  the  22dof  December,  1620,  although  not  the  first  Euro- 
pean establishment  in  what  now  constitutes  the  United  States, 
was  yet  so  peculiar  in  its  causes  and  character,  and  has  been 
followed  and  must  still  be  followed  by  such  consequences,  as  to 
give  it  a  high  claim  to  lasting  commemoration.  On  11. 
causes  and  consequences,  more  than  on  its  immediately  attend- 
ant circumstances,  its  importance,  as  an  historical  event,  de- 
pends. Great  actions  and  striking  occurrences,  having  excited 
a  temporary  admiration,  often  pass  away  and  are  forgotten, 
because  they  leave  no  lasting  results,  affecting  the  prosperity 
and  happiness  of  communities.  Such  is  frequently  the  fortune 
of  the  most  brilliant  military  achievements.  Of  the  ten  thou- 
sand battles  which  have  been  fought;  of  all  the  fields  fertili/ed 
with  carnage  ;  of  the  banners  which  have  been  bathed  in  blood; 
of  the  warriors  who  have  hoped  that  they  had  risen  from  the 
field  of  conquest  to  a  glory  as  bright  and  as  durable  as  the  stars, 
—  how  few  that  continue  long  to  interest  mankind  1  The  vic- 
tory of  yesterday  is  reversed  by  the  defeat  of  to-day;  the  star 
of  military  glory,  rising  like  a  meteor,  like  a  meteor  has  fallen  ; 
disgrace  and  disaster  hang  on  the  heels  of  conquest  and  renown  ; 
victor  and  vanquished  presently  pass  away  to  oblivion  ;  and  the 
world  goes  on  in  its  course,  with  the  loss  only  of  so  many  lives 
and  so  much  treasure. 

But  if  this  be  frequently,  or  generally,  the  fortune  of  military 
achievements,  it  is  not  always  so.  There  are  enterprises,  mili- 

5  The  allusion  is  to  a  largo  historical  painting  of  the  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims 
at  Plymouth,  executed  by  Mr.  Henry  Sargent,  of  Boston,  and  presented  by  him 
to  the  Pilgrim  Society.  It  represents  the  principal  personages  of  the  company 
at  the  moment  of  landing,  with  the  Indian  Samoset,  who  approaches  them  with 
a  friendly  welcome. 


FIRST  SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW  ENGLAND.  479 

tary  as  well  as  civil,  which  sometimes  check  the  current  of 
events,  give  a  new  turn  to  human  affairs,  and  transmit  their 
consequences  through  ages.  We  see  their  importance  in  their 
results,  and  call  them  great,  because  great  things  follow. 
There  have  been  battles  which  have  fixed  the  fate  of  nations. 
These  come  down  to  us  in  history  with  a  solid  and  permanent 
interest,  not  created  by  a  display  of  glittering  armour,  the  rush 
of  adverse  battalions,  the  sinking  and  rising  of  pennons,  the 
flight,  the  pursuit,  and  the  victory ;  but  by  their  effect  in  advan- 
cing or  retarding  human  knowledge,  in  overthrowing  or  estab- 
lishing despotism,  in  extending  or  destroying  human  happiness. 
When  the  traveller  pauses  on  the  plain  of  Marathon,  what  are 
the  emotions  which  most  strongly  agitate  his  breast?  What,  is 
the  glorious  recollection  which  thrills  through  his  frame,  and 
suffuses  his  eyes?  Not,  I  imagine,  that  Grecian  skill  and  Gre- 
cian valour  were  here  most  signally  displayed  ;  but  that  Greece 
herself  was  saved.  It  is  because  to  this  spot,  and  to  the  event 
which  lias  rendered  it  immortal,  he  refers  all  the  succeeding 
glories  of  the  republic.  It  is  because,  if  that  day  had  gone 
otherwise,  Greece  had  perished.  It  is  because  he  perceives 
that  her  philosophers  and  orators,  her  poets  and  painters,  her 
sculptors  and  architects,  her  governments  and  free  institutions 
point  backward  to  Marathon,  and  that  their  future  existence 
seems  to  have  been  suspended  on  the  contingency,  whether  the 
Persian  or  the  Grecian  banner  should  wave  victorious  in  the 
beams  of  that  day's  setting  Sun.  And,  as  his  imagination 
kindles  at  the  retrospect,  he  is  transported  back  to  the  interest- 
ing moment ;  he  counts  the  fearful  odds  of  the  contending 
:  his  interest  for  the  result  overwhelms  him  ;  he  trembles, 
as  if  it  were  still  uncertain,  and  seems  to  doubt  whether  he  may 
consider  Socrates  and  Plato,  Demosthenes,  Sophocles,  and 
Phidias,  as  secure,  yet,  to  himself  and  to  the  world. 

"If  we  conquer,"  said  the  Athenian  commander  on  the  ap- 
proach of  that  decisive  day,  "if  we  conquer,  we  shall  make 
Athens  t  he  greatest  city  of  Greece."  A  prophecy  how  well  ful- 
iilled  !  "If  God  prosper  us,"  might  have  been  the  more  appro- 
priate language  of  our  fathers,  when  they  landed  upon  this  liock, 
"If  God  prosper  us,  we  shall  here  begin  a  work  which  shall 
last  for  ages  ;  we  shall  plant  here  a  new  society,  in  the  princi- 
ple of  the  fullest  liberty  and  the  purest  religion;  we  shall 
subdue  this  wilderness  which  is  before  us;  we  shall  fill  the 
region  of  the  great  continent,  which  stretches  almost  from  pole 
to  pole,  with  civilization  and  Christianity;  the  temples  of  the 
true  God  shall  rise  where  now  ascends  the  smoke  of  idolatrous 
sacrifice;  fields  and  gardens,  the  flowers  of  Summer,  and  the 
waving  and  golden  harvest  of  Autumn,  shall  spread  over  a 


480  WEBSTER. 

thousand  hills,  and  stretch  along  a  thousand  valleys,  never  yet, 
since  the  creation,  reclaimed  to  the  use  of  civilized  man.  AVe 
shall  whiten  this  coast  with  the  canvas  of  a  prosperous  com- 
merce ;  we  shall  stud  the  long  and  winding  shore  with  a  hun- 
dred cities.  That  which  we  sow  in  weakness  shall  he  raised  in 
strength.  'From  our  sincere,  but  houseless  worship,  there  shall 
spring  splendid  temples  to  record  (Jod's  goodness;  from  the 
simplicity  of  our  social  union,  tin-re  shall  arise  wise  and  politic 
constitutions  of  government,  full  of  the  liberty  which  we  our- 
selves bring  and  breathe;  from  our  zeal  for  learning,  institu- 
tions shall  spring  which  shall  scatter  the  light  of  knowledge 
throughout  the  land,  and,  in  time,  paying  back  where  they  have 
borrowed,  shall  contribute  their  part  to  the  great  aggregate  of 
human  knowledge  ;  and  our  descendants,  through  all  genera- 
tions, shall  look  back  to  this  spot  and  to  this  hour  with  una- 
bated affection  and  regard." 

Of  the  motives  which  influenced  the  first  settlers  to  a  vol- 
untary exile,  induced  them  to  relinquish  their  native  coun- 
try, and  to  seek  an  asylum  in  this  then  unexplored  wilderness, 
the  first  and  principal,  no  doubt,  were  connected  with  religion. 
They  sought  to  enjoy  a  higher  degree  of  religious  freedom,  and 
what  they  esteemed  a  purer  form  of  religious  worship,  than 
was  allowed  to  their  choice,  or  presented  to  their  imitation,  in 
the  Old  World.  The  love  of  religious  liberty  is  a  stronger  sen- 
timent, when  fully  excited,  than  an  attachment  to  civil  or 
political  freedom.  That  freedom  which  the  conscience  de- 
mands, and  which  men  feel  bound  by  their  hope  of  salvation  to 
contend  for,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  attained.  Conscience,  in  the 
cause  of  religion  and  the  worship  of  the  Deity,  prepares  the 
mind  to  act  and  to  suffer  beyond  almost  all  other  causes.  It 
sometimes  gives  an  impulse  so  irresistible,  that  no  feti 
power  or  of  opinion  can  withstand  it.  History  instructs  us 
that  this  love  of  religious  liberty,  a  compound  sentiment  in  the 
breast  of  man,  made  up  of  the  clearest  sense  of  right  and  the 
highest  conviction  of  duty,  is  able  to  look  the  sternest  despot- 
ism in  the  face,  and,  with  means  apparently  the  most  inade- 
quate, to  shake  principalities  and  powers.  There  is  a  boldness. 
a  spirit  of  daring,  in  religious  reformers,  not  to  be  measured  by 
the  general  rules  which  control  men's  purposes  and  actions. 
If  the  hand  of  power  be  laid  upon  it,  this  only  seems  to  aug- 
ment its  force  and  elasticity,  and  to  cause  its  action  to  be  more 
formidable  and  violent.  Human  invention  has  devised  nothing, 
human  power  has  compassed  nothing,  that  can  forcibly  restrain 
it,  when  it  breaks  forth.  Nothing  can  stop  it,  but  to  give  way 
to  it ;  nothing  can  check  it,  but  indulgence.  It  loses  its  power 


FIRST  SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW   ENGLAND.  481 

only  when  it  has  gained  its  object.  The  principle  of  toleration, 
to  which  the  world  has  come  so  slowly,  is  at  once  the  most  just 
and  the  most  wise  of  all  principles.  Even  when  religious 
feeling  takes  a  character  of  extravagance  and  enthusiasm,  and 
seems  to  threaten  the  order  of  society  and  shake  the  columns 
of  the  social  edifice,  its  principal  danger  is  in  its  restraint.  If 
it  be  allowed  indulgence  and  exhaustion,  like  the  elemental 
fires,  it  only  agitates,  and  perhaps  purifies,  the  atmosphere ; 
while  its  efforts  to  throw  off  restraint  would  burst  the  world 
asunder. 

It  is  certain  that,  although  many  of  them  were  republicans 
in  principle,  we  have  no  evidence  that  our  New  England  an- 
cestors would  have  emigrated,  as  they  did,  from  their  native 
country,  would  have  become  wanderers  in  Europe,  and  finally 
would  have  undertaken  the  establishment  of  a  colony  here, 
merely  from  their  dislike  of  the  political  systems  of  Europe. 
They  lied  not  so  much  from  the  civil  government,  as  from  the 
hierarchy,  and  the  laws  which  enforced  conformity  to  the 
Church  establishment.  Mr.  Kobinson  had  left  England  as 
early  as  1G08,  on  account  of  the  persecutions  for  nonconformity, 
and  had  retired  to  Holland.  lie  left  England,  from  no  disap- 
pointed ambition  in  affairs  of  State,  from  no  regrets  at  the  want 
of  preferment  in  the  Church,  nor  from  any  motive  of  distinc- 
tion  or  of  gain.  Uniformity  in  matters  of  religion  was  pressed 
with  such  extreme  rigour,  that  a  voluntary  exile  seemed  the 
most  eligible  mode  of  escaping  from  the  penalties  of  noncom- 
pliance.  The  accession  of  Elizabeth  had,  it  is  true,  quenched 
the  fires  of  Smithfield,  and  put  an  end  to  the  easy  acquisition 
of  the  crown  of  martyrdom.  Her  long  reign  had  established 
••formation,  but  toleration  was  a  virtue  beyond  her  concep- 
tion, and  beyond  the  age.  She  left  no  example  of  it  to  her 
-or;  and  he  was  not  of  a  character  which  rendered  it 
probable  that  a  sentiment  either  so  wise  or  so  liberal  would 
originate  with  him.  At  the  present  period  it  seems  incredible 
that  the  learned,  accomplished,  unassuming,  and  inoffensive 
ItobhiMm  should  neither  be  tolerated  in  his  peaceable  mode  of 
w«  r<hip  in  his  own  country,  nor  suffered  quietly  to  depart  from 
it.  Yet  such  was  the  fact.  He  left  his  country  by  stealth,  that 
lie  might  elsewhere  enjoy  those  rights  which  ought  to  belong 
to  men  in  all  countries.  The  departure  of  the  Pilgrims  for 
Holland  is  deeply  interesting  from  its  circumstances,  and  also 
.1-  it  marked  the  character  of  the  times,  independently  of  its 
connection  with  names  now  incorporated  with  the  history  of 
empire.  The  embarkation  was  intended  to  be  made  in  such  a 
manner,  that  it  might  escape;  the  notice  of  the  officers  of  gov- 
ernment. Great  pains  had  been  taken  to  secure  boats,  which 


482  WEBSTER. 

should  como  undiscovered  to  the  shore,  and  receive  the  fugi- 
tives ;  and  frequent  disappointments  had  been  experienced  in 
this  respect. 

At  length  the  appointed  time  came,  bringing  with  it  unusual 
severity  of  cold  and  rain.  An  unfrequented  and  barren  heath, 
on  the  shores  of  Lincolnshire,  was  the  selected  spot  when1  the 
feet  of  the  Pilgrims  were  to  tread,  for  the  last  time,  the  land  of 
their  fathers.  The  vessel  which  was  to  receive  them  did  not 
come  until  the  next  day  ;  and  in  the  mean  time  the  little  band 
was  collected,  and  men  and  women  and  children  and  baggage 
were  crowded  together,  in  melancholy  and  distressed  confusion. 
The  sea  was  rough,  and  the  women  and  children  were  already 
sick,  from  their  passage  down  the  river  to  the  place  of  embarka- 
tion on  the  sea.  At  length  the  wished-1'or  boat  silently  and  fear- 
fully approaches  the  shore,  and  men  and  women  and  children, 
shaking  with  fearand  with  cold,  as  many  as  the  small  vessel  could 
bear,  venture  olT  on  a  dangerous  sea.  Immediately  the  advance 
of  horses  is  heard  from  behind,  armed  men  appear,  and  those 
not  yet  embarked  are  sei/ed,  and  taken  into  custody.  In  the 
hurry  of  the  moment,  the  first  parties  had  been  sent  on  board 
without  any  attempt  to  keep  members  of  the  same  family  to- 
gether; and,  on  account  of  the  appearance  of  the  horsemen, 
the  boat  never  returned  for  the  residue.  Those  who  had  got 
away,  and  those  who  had  not,  were  in  equal  distiv  — .  A  storm, 
of  great  violence  and  long  duration,  arose  at  sea,  which  not 
only  protracted  the  voyage,  rendered  distressing  by  the  want  of 
all  accommodations  which  the  interruption  of  the  embarkation 
had  occasioned,  but  also  forced  the  vessel  out  of  her  course,  and 
menaced  immediate  shipwreck;  while  those  on  shore,  when 
they  were  dismissed  from  the  custody  of  the  officers  of  justice. 
having  no  longer  homes  or  houses  to  retire  to,  and  their  friends 
and  protectors  being  already  gone,  became  objects  of  nece 
charity,  as  well  as  of  deep  commiseration. 

As  this  scene  passes  before  us,  we  can  hardly  forbear  asking, 
whether  this  be  a  band  of  malefactors  and  felons  flying  from 
justice.  What  are  their  crimes,  that  they  hide  themselves  in 
darkness?  To  what  punishment  are  they  exposed,  that,  to 
avoid  it,  men  and  women  and  children  thus  encounter  the  surf 
of  the  Xorth  Sea,  and  the  terrors  of  a  night  storm?  AVhat  in- 
duces this  armed  pursuit,  and  this  arrest  of  fugitives  of  all 
ages  and  both  sexes  ?  Truth  does  not  allow  us  to  answer  these 
inquiries  in  a  manner  that  docs  credit  to  the  wisdom  or  the  jus- 
tice of  the  times.  This  was  not  the  flight  of  guilt,  but  of  virtue. 
It  was  an  humble  and  peaceable  religion,  Hying  from  causeless 
oppression.  It  was  conscience,  attempting  to  escape  from  the 
arbitrary  rule  of  the  Stuarts.  It  was  Bobinson  and  Brews  tor, 


THE  FIRST  CENTURY  OF  '  NEW .  ENGLAND.  483 

leading  off  their  little  band  from  their  native  soil,  at  first  to 
find  a  shelter  on  the  shore  of  the  neighbouring  continent,  but 
ultimately  to  come  hither ;  and,  having  surmounted  all  diffi- 
culties and  braved  a  thousand  dangers,  to  find  here  a  place  of 
refuge  and  of  rest.  Thanks  be  to  God,  that  this  spot  was  hon- 
oured as  the  asylum  of  religious  liberty  1  May  its  standard, 
reared  hero,  remain  for  ever  1  May  it  rise  up  as  high  as 
heaven,  till  its  banner  shall  fan  the  air  of  both  continents,  and 
wave  as  a  glorious  ensign  of  peace  and  security  to  the  nations  ! 


THE  FIRST  CENTURY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  the  Roman  Colonies  partook  of  the 
fortunes,  as  well  as  the  sentiments  and  general  character,  of  the 
seat  of  empire.  They  lived  together  with  her,  they  flourished 
with  her,  and  fell  with  her.  The  branches  were  lopped  away 
even  lie  fore  the  vast  and  venerable  trunk  itself  fell  prostrate  to 
the  earth.  Nothing  had  proceeded  from  her  which  could  sup- 
port itself,  and  bear  up  the  name  of  its  origin,  when  her  own 
sustaining  arm  should  be  enfeebled  or  withdrawn.  It  was  not 
given  to  lionie  to  see,  either  at  her  zenith  or  in  her  decline,  a 
child  of  her  own,  distant  indeed,  and  independent  of  her  control, 
yet  speaking  her  language  and  inheriting  her  blood,  springing 
forward  to  a  competition  with  her  own  power,  and  a  comparison 
with  her  own  great  renown.  She  saw  not  a  vast  region  of  the 
Earth  peopled  from  her  stock,  full  of  States  and  political  com- 
munities, improving  upon  the  models  of  her  institutions,  and 
breathing  in  fuller  measure  the  spirit  which  she  had  breathed 
in  the  best  periods  of  her  existence  ;  enjoying  and  extending 
her  arts  and  her  literature  ;  rising  rapidly  from  political  child- 
hood to  manly  strength  and  independence;  her  offspring,  yet 
now  her  equal  ;  unconnected  with  the  causes  which  might 
affect  the  duration  of  her  own  power  and  greatness  ;  of  com- 
mon origin,  but  not  linked  in  a  common  fate ;  giving  ample 
pledge,  that  her  name  should  not  be  forgotten;  that  her  lan- 
guage should  not  cease  to  be  used  among  men;  that  whatsoever 
she  had  done  for  human  knowledge  and  human  happiness 
should  be  treasured  up  and  preserved ;  that  the  record  of  her 
DCC  and  her  achievements  should  not  be  obscured,  al- 
though, in  tin;  inscrutable  purposes  of  Providence,  it  might  be 
her  destiny  to  fall  from  opulence  and  splendour;  although  the 
time  might  come,  when  darkness  should  settle  on  all  her  hills  ; 
when  foreign  or  domestic  violence  should  overturn  her  altars 


484  WEBSTER. 

and  her  temples  ;  when  ignorance  and  despotism  should  fill  the 
places  where  Laws,  and  Arts,  and  Liberty  had  flourished  ; 
when  the  feet  of  barbarism  should  trample  on  the  tombs  of  her 
Consuls,  and  the  walls  of  her  Senate-house  and  Forum  echo 
only  to  the  voice  of  savage  triumph.  She  saw  not  this  glorious 
vision,  to  inspire  and  fortify  her  against  the  possible  decay  or 
downfall  of  her  power.  Happy  are  they  who  in  our  day  may 
behold  it,  if  they  shall  contemplate  it  with  the  sentiments  which 
it  ought  to  inspire  I 

The  New  England  Colonies  differ  quite  as  widely  from  the 
Asiatic  establishments  of  the  modern  European  nations,  as 
from  the  models  of  the  ancient  States.  The  sole  object  of  t  hose 
establishments  was,  originally,  trade  ;  although  we  have  sc-eii, 
in  one  of  them,  the  anomaly  of  a  mere  trading  company  attain- 
ing apolitical  character,  disbursing  revenues,  and  maintaining 
armies  and  fortresses,  until  it  has  extended  its  control  over  sev- 
enty millions  of  people.  Differing  from  these,  and  still  more 
from  the  New  Kngland  and  North  American  Colonies,  are  the 
European  settlements  in  the  "West  India  Islands.  It  is  not 
strange  that,  when  men's  minds  were  turned  to  the  settlement 
of  America,  different  objects  should  be  proposed  by  those  who 
emigrated  to  the  different  regions  of  so  vast  a  country.  Climate, 
soil,  and  condition  were  not  all  equally  favourable  to  all  pur- 
suits. In  the  "West  Indies,  the  purpose  of  those  who  went 
thither  was  to  rngage  in  that  species  of  agriculture,  suited  to 
the  soil  and  climate,  which  seems  to  bear  more  resemblance  to 
commerce  than  to  the  hard  and  plain  tillage  of  Xew  England. 
The  great  staples  of  these  countries,  being  partly  an  agricultu- 
ral and  partly  a  manufactured  product,  and  not  being  of  the 
necessaries  of  life,  become  the  object  of  calculation,  with  re- 
spect to  a  profitable  investment  of  capital,  like  any  other  enter- 
prise of  trade  or  manufacture.  The  more  especially,  as, 
requiring,  by  necessity  or  habit,  slave-labour  for  their  produc- 
tion, the  capital  necessary  to  carry  on  the  work  of  this  produc- 
tion is  very  considerable.  The  West  Indies  are  resorted  to, 
therefore,  rather  for  the  investment  of  capital  than  for  the 
purpose  of  sustaining  life  by  personal  labour.  Such  as  po.- 
considerable  amount  of  capital,  or  such  as  choose  to  adventure 
in  commercial  speculations  without  capital,  can  alone  be  lined 
to  be  emigrants  to  the  islands.  The  agriculture  of  thi 
gions,  as  before  observed,  is  a  sort  of  commerce;  and  it  is  a 
species  of  employment  in  which  labour  seems  to  form  an  incon- 
siderable ingredient  in  the  productive  causes,  since  the  portion 
of  white-labour  is  exceedingly  small,  and  slave-labour  is  rather 
more  like  profit  on  stock  or  capital  than  labour  properly  so 
called.  The  individual  who  undertakes  an  establishment  of 


THE  FIRST  CENTURY  OP  NEW  ENGLAND.  485 

this  kind  takes  into  the  account  the  cost  of  the  necessary  num- 
ber of  slaves,  in  the  same  manner  as  he  calculates  the  cost  of 
the  land.  The  uncertainty,  too,  of  this  species  of  employment 
affords  another  ground  of  resemblance  to  commerce.  Although 
gainful  on  the  whole,  and  in  a  series  of  years,  it  is  often  very 
disastrous  for  a  single  year ;  and,  as  the  capital  is  not  readily 
invested  in  other  pursuits,  bad  crops  or  bad  markets  not  only 
affect  the  profits,  but  the  capital  itself.  Hence  the  sudden 
depressions  which  take  place  in  the  value  of  such  estates. 

But  the  great  and  leading  observation,  relative  to  these  estab- 
lishments, remains  to  be  made.  It  is,  that  the  owners  of  the 
soil  and  of  the  capital  seldom  consider  themselves  at  home  in  the 
colony.  A  very  great  portion  of  the  soil  itself  is  usually  owned 
in  the  mother  country  ;  a  still  greater  is  mortgaged  for  capital 
obtained  there  ;  and,  in  general,  those  who  are  to  derive  an 
interest  from  the  products  look  to  the  parent  country  as  the 
place  for  enjoyment  of  their  wealth.  The  population  is  there- 
fore constantly  fluctuating.  Nobody  comes  but  to  return.  A 
constant  succession  of  owners,  agents,  and  factors  takes  place. 
Whatsoever  the  soil,  forced  by  the  unmitigated  toil  of  slavery, 
can  yield,  is  sent  home  to  defray  rents,  and  interests,  and  agen- 
cies, or  to  give  the  means  of  living  in  a  better  society.  In  such 
a  state,  it  is  evident  that  no  spirit  of  permanent  improvement 
is  likely  to  spring  up.  Profits  will  not  be  invested  with  a  dis- 
tant view  of  benefiting  posterity.  Roads  and  canals  will  hardly 
be  built ;  schools  will  not  be  founded  ;  colleges  will  not  be  en- 
dowed. There  will  be  few  fixtures  in  society ;  no  principles 
of  utility  or  elegance,  planted  now,  with  the  hope  of  being 
developed  and  expanded  hereafter.  Profit,  immediate  profit 
must  be  the  principal  active  spring  in  the  social  system.  There 
may  be  many  particular  exceptions  to  these  general  remarks, 
but  tho  outline  of  the  whole  is  such  as  is  here  drawn. 

Another  most  important  consequence  of  such  a  state  of 
things  is,  that  no  idea  of  independence  of  the  parent  country  is 
likely  to  arise ;  unless,  indeed,  it  should  spring  up  in  a  form 
that  would  threaten  universal  desolation.  The  inhabitants 
have  no  strong  attachment  to  the  place  which  they  inhabit. 
The  hope  of  a  great  portion  of  them  is  to  leave  it ;  and  their 
great  desire,  to  leave  it  soon.  However  useful  they  may  be  to 
the  parent  State,  how  much  soever  they  may  add  to  the  con- 
veniences and  luxuries  of  life,  these  colonies  are  not  favoured 
spots  for  the  expansion  of  the  human  mind,  for  the  progress  of 
permanent  improvement,  or  for  sowing  the  seeds  of  future 
independent  empire. 

Different  indeed,  most  widely  different,  from  all  these  in- 
stances of  emigration  and  plantation,  were  the  condition,  the 


486  WEBSTER. 

purposes,  and  the  prospects  of  our  fathers,  when  they  estab- 
lished their  infant  colony  upon  this  spot.  They  came  hither  to 
a  land  from  which  they  were  never  to  return.  Hither  they  had 
brought,  and  here  they  were  to  fix,  their  hopes,  their  attach- 
ments, and  their  objects  in  life.  Some  natural  tears  they  shed, 
as  they  left  the  pleasant  abodes  of  their  fathers,  and  some  emo- 
tions they  suppressed,  when  the  \vhite  cliffs  of  their  native 
country,  now  seen  for  the  last  time,  grew  dim  to  their  sight. 
They  were  acting,  however,  upon  a  resolution  not  to  be  daunted. 
"With  whatever  stifled  regrets,  with  whatever  occasional  hesita- 
tion, with  whatever  appalling  apprehensions,  which  might  some- 
times arise  with  force  to  shake  the  firmest  purpose,  they  had 
yet  committed  themselves  to  Heaven  and  the  elements  ;  and  a 
thousand  leagues  of  water  soon  interposed  to  separate  them  for 
ever  from  the  region  which  gave  them  birth.  A  new  existence 
awaited  them  here ;  and  when  they  saw  these  shores,  rough, 
cold,  barbarous,  and  barren,  as  then  they  were,  they  beheld 
their  country.  That  mixed  and  strong  feeling  which  wo  call 
love  of  country,  and  which  is,  in  general,  never  extinguished  in 
the  heart  of  man,  grasped  and  embraced  its  proper  object  here. 
Whatever  constitutes  count ri/,  except  the  earth  and  the  sun,  all 
the  moral  causes  of  affection  and  attachment  which  operate 
upon  the  heart,  they  had  brought  with  them  to  their  new  abode. 
Hero  were  now  their  families  and  friends,  their  homes  and 
their  property.  Before  they  reached  the  shore,  they  had  estab- 
lished the  elements  of  a  social  system,  and  at  a  much  earlier 
period  had  settled  their  forms  of  religious  worship.  At  the 
moment  of  their  landing,  therefore,  they  possessed  institutions 
of  government  and  institutions  of  religion  :  and  friends  and 
families,  and  social  and  religious  institutions,  established  by 
consent,  founded  on  choice  and  preference,  how  nearly  do  these 
fill  up  our  whole  idea  of  country  I  The  morning  that  beamed 
on  the  first  night  of  their  repose  saw  the  Pilgrims  already  at 
home  in  their  country.  There  were  political  institutions,  and 
civil  liberty,  and  religious  worship.  Poetry  has  fancied  noth- 
ing, in  the  wanderings  of  heroes,  so  distinct  and  characteristic. 
Here  was  man,  indeed,  unprotected  and  unprovided  foF,  on  the 
shore  of  a  rude  and  fearful  wilderness  ;  but  it  was  politie,  intel- 
ligent, and  educated  man.  Every  thing  was  civilized  but  the 
physical  world.  Institutions,  containing  in  substance  all  that 
ages  had  done  for  human  government,  were  established  in  a 
forest.  Cultivated  mind  was  to  act  on  uncultivated  .Nature; 
and,  more  than  all,  a  government  and  a  country  were  to  com- 
mence, with  the  very  first  foundations  laid  under  the  divine 
light  of  the  Christian  religion.  Happy  auspices  of  a  happy 
futurity  I  Who  would  wish  that  his  country's  existence  had 


THE   FIRST  CENTURY  OF   NEW  ENGLAND.  487 

otherwise  begun?  Who  would  desire  the  power  of  going  back 
to  the  ages  of  fable  ?  Who  would  wish  for  an  origin  obscured 
in  the  darkness  of  antiquity?  Who  would  wish  for  other  em- 
blazoning of  his  country's  heraldry,  or  other  ornaments  of  her 
genealogy,  than  to  be  able  to  say,  that  her  first  existence  was 
with  intelligence,  her  first  breath  the  inspiration  of  liberty, 
her  first  principle  the  truth  of  Divine  religion  ? 

Local  attachments  and  sympathies  would  ere  long  spring  up 
in  the  breasts  of  our  ancestors,  endearing  to  them  the  place  of 
their  refuge.  Whatever  natural  objects  are  associated  with 
interesting  scenes  and  high  efforts,  obtain  a  hold  on  human 
feeling,  and  demand  from  the  heart  a  sort  of  recognition  and 
regard.  This  Hock  soon  became  hallowed  in  the  esteem  of  the 
Pilgrims,  and  these  hills  grateful  to  their  sight.  Neither  they 
nor  their  children  were  again  to  till  the  soil  of  England,  nor 
again  to  traverse  the  seas  which  surrounded  her.  But  here 
was  a  new  sea,  now  open  to  their  enterprise,  and  a  new  soil, 
which  had  not  failed  to  respond  gratefully  to  their  laborious 
industry,  and  which  was  already  assuming  a  robe  of  verdure. 
Hardly  had  they  provided  shelter  for  the  living,  ere  they  were 
summoned  to  erect  sepulchres  for  the  dead.  The  ground  had 
become  sacred,  by  enclosing  the  remains  of  some  of  their  com- 
panions and  connections.  A  parent,  a  child,  a  husband,  or 
a  wife,  had  gone  the  way  of  all  flesh,  and  mingled  with  the 
dust  of  New  England.  We  naturally  look  with  strong  emotions 
to  the  spot,  though  it  be  a  wilderness,  where  the  ashes  of  those 
we  have  loved  repose.  Where  the  heart  has  laid  down  what  it 
loved  most,  there  it  is  desirous  of  laying  itself  down.  No  sculpt- 
ured marble,  no  enduring  monument,  no  honourable  inscription, 
no  ever-burning  taper  that  would  drive  away  the  darkness  of  the 
tomb,  can  soften  our  sense  of  the  reality  of  death,  and  hallow 
to  our  feelings  the  ground  which  is  to  cover  us,  like  the  con- 
sciousness that  we  shall  sleep,  dust  to  dust,  with  the  objects  of 
our  affections. 

In  a  short  time  other  causes  sprang  up  to  bind  the  Pilgrims 
with  new  cords  to  their  chosen  land.  Children  were  born,  and 
the  hopes  of  future  generations  arose,  in-  the  spot  of  their  now 
habitation.  The  second  generation  found  this  the  land  of  their 
nativity,  and  saw  that  they  were  bound  to  its  fortunes.  They 
In-held  their  fathers'  graves  around  them,  and,  while  they  read 
the  memorials  of  their  toils  and  labours,  they  rejoiced  in  the 
inheritance  which  they  found  bequeathed  to  them. 

Under  the  influence  of  these  causes,  it  was  to  be  expected 
that  an  interest  and  a  feeling  should  arise  here,  entirely  differ- 
ent from  the  interest  and  feeling  of  mere  Englishmen  ;  and  all 
the  subsequent  history  of  the  Colonies  proves  this  to  have 


488  WEBSTER. 

actually  and  gradually  taken  place.  With  a  general  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  supremacy  of  the  British  Crown,  there  was, 
from  the  first,  a  repugnance  to  an  entire  submission  to  the  con- 
trol of  British  legislation.  The  Colonies  stood  upon  their 
charters,  which,  as  they  contended,  exempted  them  from  the 
ordinary  power  of  the  British  Parliament,  and  authorized  them 
to  conduct  their  own  concerns  by  their  own  counsels.  They 
utterly  resisted  the  notion  that  they  were  to  be  ruled  by  the 
mere  authority  of  the  government  at  home,  and  would  not 
endure  even  that  their  own  charter  governments  should  be 
established  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  It  was  not  a  con- 
trolling or  protecting  board  in  England,  but  a  government  of 
their  own,  and  existing  immediately  within  their  limits,  which 
could  satisfy  their  wishes.  It  was  ea<y  to  foresee,  what  we 
know  also  to  have  happened,  that  the  first  great  cause  of  colli- 
sion and  jealousy  would  be,  under  the  notion  of  political  econ- 
omy then  and  still  prevalent  in  Europe,  an  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  mother  country  to  monopolize  the  trade  of  the 
Colonies.  Whoever  has  looked  deeply  into  the  causes  which 
produced  our  Revolution,  has  found,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  origi- 
nal principle  far  back  in  this  claim,  on  the  part  of  England,  to 
monopolize  our  trade,  and  a  continued  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
Colonies  to  resist  or  evade  that  monopoly;  if  indeed  it  be  not 
still  more  just  and  philosophical  to  go  further  back,  and  to  con- 
sider it  decided  that  an  independent  government  must  arise 
here,  the  moment  it  was  ascertained  that  an  English  colony, 
such  as  landed  in  this  place,  could  sustain  itself  against  the 
dangers  which  surrounded  it,  and,  with  other  similar  establish- 
ments, overspread  the  land  with  an  English  population.  Acci- 
dental causes  retarded  at  times,  and  at  times  accelerated,  the 
progress  of  the  controversy.  The  Colonies  wanted  strength, 
and  time  gave  it  to  them.  They  required  measures  of  strong 
and  palpable  injustice,  on  the  part  of  the  mother  country,  to 
justify  resistance  ;  the  early  part  of  the  late  King's  reign  fur- 
nished them.  They  needed  spirits  of  a  high  order,  of  great 
daring,  of  long  foresight,  and  of  commanding  power,  to  seize 
the  favouring  occasion  to  strike  a  blow,  which  should  sever,  for 
ever,  the  tie  of  colonial  dependence ;  and  these  spirits  were 
found,  in  all  the  extent  which  that  or  any  crisis  could  demand, 
in  Otis,  Adams,  Hancock,  and  the  other  immediate  authors  of 
our  independence. 


THE   SECOND   CENTURY   OF   NEW  ENGLAND.  489 


THE  SECOND  CENTURY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND. 

THE  second  century  opened  upon  New  England  under  cir- 
cumstances which  evinced  that  much  had  already  been  accom- 
plished, and  that  still  better  prospects  and  brighter  hopes  were 
before  her.  She  had  laid,  deep  and  strong,  the  foundations  of 
her  society.  Her  religious  principles  were  firm,  and  her  moral 
habits  exemplary.  Her  public  schools  had  begun  to  diffuse 
widely  the  elements  of  knowledge  ;  and  the  College,  under  the 
excellent  and  acceptable  administration  of  Leverett,  had  been 
raised  to  a  high  degree  of  credit  and  usefulness. 

The  commercial  character  of  the  country,  notwithstanding  all 
discouragements,  had  begun  to  display  itself,  and  Jive  hion'ird 
r<  a*  />•,  then  belonging  to  Massachusetts,  placed  her  in  rela- 
tion to  commerce,  thus  early,  at  the  head  of  the  Colonies. 
An  author  who  wrote  very  near  the  close  of  the  first  century 
says  :  "New  England  is  almost  deserving  that  noble  name,  so 
mightily  hath  it  increased ;  and,  from  a  small  settlement  at 
lirst,  is  now  become  a  very  populous  and  flourishing  government. 
The  capital  cifi/,  Boston,  is  a  place  of  great  wealth  and  trade; 
and  by  much  the  largest  of  any  in  the  English  empire  of  Amer- 
ica ;  and  exceeded  by  but  few  cities,  perhaps  two  or  three,  in 
all  the  American  world." 

But  if  our  ancestors  at  the  close  of  the  first  century  could 
look  back  with  joy,  and  even  admiration,  at  the  progress  of  the 
country,  what  emotions  must  we  not  feel,  when,  from  the  point 
in  which  we  stand,  we  also  look  back  and  run  along  the  events 
of  the  century  which  has  now  closed?  The  country  which 
then,  as  we  have  seen,  was  thought  deserving  of  a  "noble 
name";  which  then  had  "mightily  increased,"  and  become 
"very  populous";  what  was  it,  in  comparison  with  what  our 
eyes  behold  it?  At  that  period  a  very  great  proportion  of 
its  inhabitants  lived  in  the  eastern  section  of  Massachusetts 
proper,  and  in  Plymouth  Colony.  In  Connecticut,  there  were 
towns  along  the  coast,  some  of  them  respectable,  but  in  the 
interior  all  was  a  wilderness  lieyond  Hartford.  On  Connecticut 
river  settlements  had  proceeded  as  far  up  as  Deerfield,  and  Fort, 
iXimmer  had  been  built  near  where,  is  now  the  south  line  of 
.New  Hampshire.  In  New  Hampshire,  no  settlement  was  then 
begun  thirty  miles  from  the  mouth  of  Piscataqua  river,  and,  in 
what  is  now  Maine,  the  inhabitants  were  confined  to  the  coast. 
The  aggregate;  of  the  whole  pojmlat  ion  of  New  England  did  not 
exceed  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand.  Its  present  amount  is 
probably  one  million  seven  hundred  thousand.  Instead  of  being 
confined  to  its  former  limits,  her  population  has  rolled  back- 


490  WEBSTER. 

ward  and  filled  up  the  spaces  included  within  her  actual  local 
boundaries.  Not  this  only,  but  it  has  overflowed  those  boun- 
daries, and  the  waves  of  emigration  have  pressed  further  and 
further  toward  the  West.  The  Alleghany  has  not  checked  it; 
the  banks  of  the  Ohio  have  been  covered  with  it.  New  Eng- 
land farms,  houses,  villages,  and  churches  spread  over  and 
adorn  the  immense  extent  from  the  Ohio  to  Lake  Eric,  and 
stretch  along  from  the  Alleghmny  on  wards,  beyond  the  Miamis, 
and  toward  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony.  Two  thousand  miles 
westward  from  the  rock  where  their  fathers  landed,  may  now 
be  found  the  sons  of  the  Pilgrims,  cultivating  smiling  fields, 
rearing  towns  and  villages,  and  cherishing,  we  trust,  the  patri- 
monial blessings  of  wise  institutions  of  liberty  and  religion. 
The  world  has  seen  nothing  like  this.  Kegions  large  enough  to 
be  empires,  and  which,  half  a  century  ago,  were  known  only  as 
remote  and  unexplored  wildernesses,  are  now  teeming  with 
population,  and  prosperous  in  all  the  great  concerns  of  life  ;  in 
good  governments,  the  means  of  subsistence,  and  social  happi- 
ness. It  may  be  safely  asserted  that  there  are  now  more  than 
a  million  of  people,  descendants  of  New  England  ancotry, 
living  free  and  happy,  in  regions  which,  hardly  sixty  year 
were  tracts  of  unpenetrated  forest.  Nor  do  rivers,  or  moun- 
tains, or  seas  resist  the  progress  of  industry  and  enterprise. 
Ere  long,  the  sons  of  the  Pilgrims  will  be  on  the  shores  of  the 
Pacific.6  The  imagination  hardly  keeps  up  with  the  progress 
of  population,  improvement,  and  civilization. 

It  is  now  five-and-forty  years  since  the  growth  and  rising 
glory  of  America  were  portrayed  in  the  English  Parliament, 
with  inimitable  beauty,  by  the  most  consummate  orator  of 
modern  times.  Going  back  somewhat  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury, and  describing  our  progress  as  foreseen  from  that  point 
by  his  amiable  friend  Lord  Batfaurst,  then  living,  he  spoke  of 
the  wonderful  progress  which  America  had  made  during  the 
period  of  a  single  human  life.7  There  is  no  American  heart,  I 
imagine,  that  does  not  glow,  both  with  conscious,  patriotic 
pride,  and  admiration  for  one  of  the  happiest  efforts  of  elo- 
quence, so  often  as  the  vision  of  "that  little  speck,  scare- 
ble  in  the  mass  of  national  interest,  a  small  seminal  principle, 
rather  than  a  formed  body,"  and  the  progress  of  its  astonishing 
development  and  growth,  are  recalled  to  the  recollection. 
But  a  stronger  feeling  might  be  produced,  if  we  were  able  to 

G  It  is  hardly  needful  to  observe  how  this  prediction  lias  been  fulfilled  iu  the 
settlement  of  California,  and  its  incorporation  as  a  State  of  the  Union. 

7  The  allusion  is  to  a  very  celebrated  passage  in  Unrkc's  >/'«v//  on  Concifai* 
tion  with  America,  which  is  given  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  volume.  See  page 
lj-2. 


THE  SECOND   CENTURY   OF  NEW   ENGLAND.  491 

take  up  this  prophetic  description  where  he  left  it,  and,  placing 
ourselves  at  the  point  of  time  in  which  he  was  speaking,  to 
set  forth  with  equal  felicity  the  subsequent  progress  of  the 
country.  There  is  yet  among  the  living  a  most  distinguished 
and  venerable  name,  a  descendant  of  the  Pilgrims ;  one  who 
has  been  attended  through  life  by  a  great  and  fortunate  gen- 
ius ;  a  man  illustrious  by  his  own  great  merits,  and  favoured 
of  Heaven  in  the  long  continuation  of  his  years.8  The  time 
when  the  English  orator  was  thus  speaking  of  America  pre- 
ceded but  by  a  few  days  the  actual  opening  of  the  llevolu- 
tionary  drama  at  Lexington.  He  to  whom  I  have  alluded, 
then  at  the  age  of  forty,  was  among  the  most  zealous  and  ablo 
defenders  of  the  violated  rights  of  his  country.  He  seemed 
already  to  have  filled  a  full  measure  of  public  service  and  at- 
tained an  honourable  fame.  The  moment  was  full  of  difficulty 
and  diinger,  and  big  with  events  of  immeasurable  importance. 
The  country  was  on  the  very  brink  of  a  civil  war,  of  which  no 
man  could  foretell  the  duration  or  the  result.  Something  more 
than  a  courageous  hope,  or  characteristic  ardour,  would  have 
been  necessary  to  impress  the  glorious  prospect  on  his  belief, 
if,  at  that  moment,  before  the  sound  of  the  iirst  shock  of  actual 
war  had  reached  his  ears,  some  attendant  spirit  had  opened  to 
him  the  vision  of  the  future  ;  —  if  it  had  said  to  him,  "The  blow 
is  struck,  and  America  is  severed  from  England  for  ever  I  "  — 
if  it  had  informed  him  that  he  himself,  the  next  annual  revolu- 
tion of  the  Sun,  should  put  his  own  hand  to  the  great  instru- 
ment of  Independence,  and  write  his  name  where  all  nations 
should  behold  it  and  all  time  should  not  efface  it ;  that  ere  long 
lie  himself  should  maintain  the  interest  and  represent  the  sov- 
ereignty of  his  new-born  country  in  the  proudest  Courts  of 
Europe  ;  that  he  should  one  day  exercise  her  supreme  magis- 
tracy ;  that  he  should  yet  live  to  behold  ten  millions  of  f ellow- 
eitixens  paying  him  the  homage  of  their  deepest  gratitude  and 
kindest  affections  ;  that  he  should  see  distinguished  talent  and 
high  public  trust  resting  where  his  name  rested  ;  that  he  should 
even  see  with  his  own  unclouded  eyes  the  close  of  the  second 
century  of  New  England,  who  had  begun  life  almost  with  its 
commencement,  and  lived  through  nearly  half  the  whole  his- 
tory of  his  country  ;  and  that  on  the  morning  of  this  auspicious 
day  ITc  should  he  found  in  the  political  councils  of  his  native 
IS  tatty1  revising,  by  the  light  of  experience,  that  system  of  gov- 
ernment which  forty  years  before  he  had  assisted  to  frame 

8    'Keferriiix  to  John  Adams,  the  second  President  of  the  United  States. 

U  At  the  time  when  this  was  spoken,  Mr.  Adams  was  a  member,  as  Webster 
liiin.-i  II  also  ua.-s  of  a  Convention  of  Massachusetts,  which  assembled,  hi  the 
Fall  of  1H-20,  to  revise  and  amend  the  Constitution  of  the  Stute. 


492  WEBSTER. 

and  establish ;  and,  great  and  happy  as  he  should  then  behold 
his  country,  there  should  be  nothing  in  project  to  cloud  iho 
scene,  nothing  to  check  the  ardour  of  that  confident  and  patri- 
otic hope  which  should  glow  in  his  bosom  to  the  end  of  his  long- 
protracted  and  happy  life. 


APPEAL  AGAINST  THE  SLA  YK-TRADE. 

On:  ancestors  established  their  system  of  government  on 
morality  and  religious  sentiment,  floral  habits,  they  believed, 
cannot  safely  lie  trusted  on  any  other  foundation  than  religious 
principle,  nor  any  government  be  secure  which  is  not  supported 
by  moral  habits.  Living  under  the  heavenly  light  of  revela- 
tion, they  hoped  to  find  all  the  social  dispositions,  all  the  duties 
which  men  owe  to  each  other  and  to  x«,eiety.  enforced  and  per- 
formed. AVhatever  makes  men  good  Christians,  makes  them 
good  citizens.  Our  fathers  came  here  to  enjoy  their  religion 
free  and  unmolested  ;  and.  at  the  end  of  two  centuries  fcl 
nothing  upon  which  we  can  pronounce  more  confidently,  noth- 
ing of  which  we  can  express  a  more  deep  and  earnest  convic- 
tion, than  of  the  inest imahle  importance  of  that  religion  to 
man,  both  in  regard  to  this  life  and  that  which  is  to  come. 

If  the  blessings  of  our  political  and  social  condition  have  not 
been  too  highly  otiniated,  we  cannot  well  overrate  the  re-pon- 
sibility  and  duty  which  they  impose  upon  us.  ANY  hold  these 
institutions  of  government,  religion,  and  learning,  to  be  trans- 
mitted, as  well  as  enjoyed.  ANY  are  in  the  line  of  conveyance, 
through  which  whatever  has  been  obtained  by  the  spirit  and 
efforts  of  our  ancestors  is  to  be  communicated  to  our  children. 

"NVe  are  bound  to  maintain  public  liberty,  and.  by  the  example 
of  our  own  system,  to  convince  the  world  that  order  and  law, 
religion  and  morality,  the  rights  of  conscience,  the  rights  • 
sons,  and  the  rights  of  property,  may  all  be  preserved  and 
secured,  in  the  most  perfect  manner,  by  a  government  entirely 
and  purely  elective.  If  we  fail  in  this,  our  disaster  will  bo. 
signal,  and  will  furnish  an  argument,  stronger  than  has  yet  been 
found,  in  support  of  those  opinions  which  maintain  that  go\  em- 
inent can  rest  safely  on  nothing  but  power  and  coercion.  A> 
far  as  experience  may  show  errors  in  our  establishments, 
bound  to  correct  them  :  ami,  if  any  practices  exi.-t,  contrary  to 
the  principles  of  justice  and  humanity,  within  the  reach  of  out- 
laws or  our  influence,  we  are  inexcusable  if  we  do  not  exert  our- 
selves to  restrain  and  abolish  them. 

I  deem  it  my  duty  on  this  occasion  to  suggest,  that  the  land  is 


APPEAL  AGAINST  THE   SLAVE-TRADE.  493 

not  yet  wholly  free  from  the  contamination  of  a  traffic  at  which 
every  feeling  of  humanity  must  for  ever  revolt, — I  mean  the 
African  slave-trade.  Neither  public  sentiment  nor  the  law  has 
hitherto  been  able  entirely  to  put  an  end  to  this  odious  and 
abominable  trade.  At  the  moment  when  God  in  His  mercy  has 
blessed  the  Christian  world  with  a  universal  peace,  there  is  rea- 
son to  fear  that,  to  the  disgrace  of  the  Christian  name  and  char- 
acter, new  efforts  are  making  for  the  extension  of  this  trade  by 
subjects  and  citizens  of  Christian  States,  in  whose  hearts  there 
dwell  no  sentiments  of  humanity  or  of  justice,  and  over  whom 
neither  the  fear  of  God  nor  the  fear  of  man  exercises  a  control. 
In  the  sight  of  our  law,  the  African  slave-trader  is  a  pirate  and 
a  felon  ;  and  in  the  sight  of  Heaven,  an  offender  far  beyond  the 
ordinary  depth  of  human  guilt.  There  is  no  brighter  part  of 
our  history  than  that  which  records  the  measures  which  have 
been  adopted  by  the  government  at  an  early  day,  and  at  differ- 
ent times  since,  for  the  suppression  of  this  traffic  ;  and  I  would 
call  on  all  the  true  sons  of  New  England  to  cooperate  with  the 
laws  of  man  and  the  justice  of  Heaven.  If  there  be,  within  the 
extent  of  our  knowledge,  or  influence,  any  participation  in  this 
trallie,  Irt  us  pledge  ourselves  here,  upon  the  rock  of  Plymouth, 
to  extirpate  and  destroy  it.  It  is  not  fit  that  the  land  of  the 
Pilgrims  should  bear  the  shame  longer.  I  hear  the  sound  of  the 
hammer,  I  see  the  smoke  of  the  furnaces  where  manacles  and 
frltrrs  are  still  forged  for  human  limbs.  I  see  the  visages  of 
thoM-  who  by  stealth  and  at  midnight  labour  in  this  work  of 
Hell,  foul  and  dark,  as  may  become  the  artificers  of  such  instru- 
ments of  misery  and  torture.  Let  that  spot  be  purified,  or  let 
it  cease  to  be  of  New  England.  Let  it  be  purified,  or  let  it  be 
set  aside  from  the  Christian  world  ;  let  it  be  put  out  of  the  cir- 
cle of  human  sympathies  and  human  regards,  and  let  civilized 
man  henceforth  have  no  communion  with  it. 

I  would  invoke  those  who  fill  the  seats  of  justice,  and  all  who 
minister  at  her  altar,  that  they  execute  the  wholesome  and  nec- 
severity  of  the  law.  I  invoke  the  ministers  of  our  relig- 
ion, that  they  proclaim  its  denunciation  of  these  crimes,  and 
add  its  solemn  sanctions  to  the  authority  of  human  laws.  If 
the  pulpit  be  silent  whenever  or  whereverthere  maybe  a  sinner 
bloody  with  this  guilt  within  the  hearing  of  its  voice,  the  pulpit 
is  false  to  its  trust.  I  call  on  the  fair  merchant,  who  has  reaped 
his  harvest  upon  the  seas,  that  he  assist  in  scourging  from  those 
seas  the  worst  pirates  that  ever  infested  them.  That  ocean, 
which  seems  to  wave  with  a  gentle  magnificence  to  waft  the 
burden  of  an  honest  commerce,  and  to  roll  along  its  treasures 
with  a  conscious  pride, —  that  ocean,  which  hardy  industry  re- 
gards, even  when  the  winds  have  ruffled  its  surface,  as  a  field  of 


494  WEBSTER. 

grateful  toil, — what  is  it  to  the  victim  of  this  oppression,  when 
he  is  brought  to  its  shores,  and  looks  forth  upon  it,  for  the  first 
time,  loaded  with  chains  and  bleeding  with  stripes?  What  is  it 
to  him  but  a  wide-spread  prospect  of  suffering,  anguish,  and 
death  ?  Nor  do  the  skies  smile  longer,  nor  is  the  air  longer  fra- 
grant to  him.  The  Sun  is  cast  down  from  heaven.  An  inhu- 
man and  accursed  traffic  has  cut  him  off  in  his  manhood,  or  in 
his  youth,  from  every  enjoyment  belonging  to  his  being,  and 
every  blessing  which  his  Creator  intended  for  him. 

The  Christian  communities  send  forth  their  emissaries  of  relig- 
ion and  letters,  who  stop,  here  and  there,  along  the  coast  of  the 
va.-t  continent  of  Africa,  and  with  painful  and  tedious  efforts 
make  some  almost  imperceptible  progress  in  the  communication 
of  knowledge,  and  in  the  general  improvement  of  the  natives 
who  are  immediately  about  them.  Not  thus  slow  and  imper- 
ceptible is  the  transmission  of  the  vices  and  bad  passions  which 
the  subjects  of  Christian  States  carry  to  the  land.  The  slave- 
trade  having  touched  the  coast,  its  influence  and  its  evils 
spread,  like  a  pestilence,  over  the  whole  continent,  making  sav- 
ago  wars  more  savage  and  more  frequent,  and  adding  new  and 
fierce  passions  to  the  contests  of  barbarians. 

I  pursue  this  topic  no  further,  except  again  to  say  that  all 
Christendom,  being  now  blessed  with  peace,  is  bound  by  every 
thing  which  belongs  to  its  character,  and  to  the  character  of  the 
present  age,  to  put  a  stop  to  this  inhuman  and  disgraceful 
traffic.1? 


BUNKER-HILL  MONUMENT  BEGUN.1 

THIS  uncounted  multitude  before  me  and  around  me  proves 
the  feeling  which  the  occasion  has  excited.  These  thousands 
of  human  faces,  glowing  with  sympathy  and  joy,  and,  from  the 

10  This  is,  to  me,  the  noblest  passage  of  the  Plymouth  discourse.  Mr.  George 
Ticknor,  who  was  present  at  the  delivery,  tells  us,  "The  passage,  about  tin-  slave- 
trade  was  delivered  with  a  power  of  indignation  such  as  I  never  witnessed  on 
any  other  occasion."  I  must  add,  from  the  same  hand,  a  description  of  Webster's 
appearance  at  a  social  gathering  immediately  alter  the  discourse  :  "lie  \\a.s 
full  of  animation  and  radiant  with  happine.-s.  Uut  there  was  something1  about 
him  very  grand  and  imposing  at  the  same  time.  In  a  letter,  which  I  wrote  the 
same  day,  I  said  that '  he  seemed  as  if  he  were  like  the  mount  that  might  not 
be  touched,  and  that  burned  with  lire.'  I  have  the  same  recollection  of  him 
still."  The  licminiscences,  from  which  this  is  taken,  were  written  many  years 
alter  the  event.  I  lind  them  quoted  largely  in  Mr.  lieorge  T.  Curtis's  very  inter- 
esting and  instructive  Life  of  Daniel  Webster. 

1  The  corner-stone  of  Kunkcr  Hill  Monument  was  laid  on  the  17th  of  June, 
ISA  just  liity  years  after  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  An  Association  had  been 


BUNKER-HILL  MONUMENT  BEGUN.  495 

impulses  of  a  common  gratitude,  turned  reverently  to  Heaven 
in  this  spacious  temple  of  the  firmament,  proclaim  that  the  day, 
the  place,  and  the  purpose  of  our  assembling  have  made  a  deep 
impression  on  our  hearts. 

If,  indeed,  there  be  any  thing  in  local  association  fit  to  affect 
the  mind  of  man,  we  need  not  strive  to  repress  the  emotions 
•which  agitate  us  here.  We  are  among  the  sepulchres  of  our 
fathers.  We  are  on  ground  distinguished  by  their  valour,  their 
constancy,  and  the  shedding  of  their  blood.  We  are  here,  not 
to  fix  an  uncertain  date  in  our  annals,  nor  to  draw  into  notice 
an  obscure  and  unknown  spot.  If  our  humble  purpose  had 
never  been  conceived,  if  we  ourselves  had  never  been  born,  the 
17th  of  June,  1775,  would  have  been  a  day  on  which  all  subse- 
quent history  would  have  poured  its  light,  and  the  eminence 
where  we  stand  a  point  of  attraction  to  tho  eyes  of  successive 
generations.  But  we  are  Americans.  We  live  in  what  may  be 
called  the  early  age  of  this  great  continent ;  and  we  know  that 
our  posterity,  through  all  time,  are  here  to  suffer  and  enjoy  the 
allotments  of  humanity.  We  see  before  us  a  probable  train  of 
great  events;  we  know  that  our  own  fortunes  have  been  hap- 
pily cast ;  and  it  is  natural,  therefore,  that  we  should  be  moved 
by  the  contemplation  of  occurrences  which  have  guided  our 
destiny  before  many  of  us  were  born,  and  settled  the  condition 
in  which  we  should  pass  that  portion  of  our  existence  which 
God  allows  to  men  on  Earth. 

We  do  not  read  even  of  the  discovery  of  this  continent  with- 
out feeling  something  of  a  personal  interest  in  the  event;  with- 
out being  reminded  how  much  it  has  affected  our  own  fortunes 
and  our  own  existence.  It  would  be  still  more  unnatural  for 
us,  therefore,  than  for  others,  to  contemplate  with  unaffected 
minds  that  interesting,  I  may  say  that  most  touching  and  pa- 
thetic scene,  when  the  great  Discoverer  of  America  stood  on 
the  deck  of  his  shattered  bark,  the  shades  of  night  falling  on 
the  sea,  yet  no  man  sleeping;  tossed  on  tho  billows  of  an  un- 
known ocean,  yet  the  stronger  billows  of  alternate  hope  and  de- 
spair tossing  his  own  troubled  thoughts  ;  extending  forward  his 

farmed  Homo  years  before,  for  the  purpose  of  rearing  the  monument,  and  Web- 
ster \\;is  at  that  time  President  of  tin;  Association.  The  occasion  was  one  of 
high  interest,  and  drc\v  a  vast  throng  of  people,  together  from  various  parts 
<>f  the  country.  The  discourse  pronounced  by  Webster  on  that  occasion  was 
received  with  unbounded  enthusiasm, and  is  certainly  among  his  noblest  strains 
of  eloquence.  J  hen-  give  the.  opening  portion  of  it.  I  hud  it  in  mind  to  give, 
nl-o,  tin;  passage  specially  addressed  to  the  band  of  Revolutionary  Veterans 
v.-ho  formed  tin;  crowning  feature  of  the  assemblage;  but  that  well-known  pas- 
sage runs  in  a  vein  so  lolly  and  so  bold,  that  perhaps  nothing  less  than  Webster's 
own  grand  delivery  could  bring  it  fairly  off,  or  earry  the  feelings  smoothly 
through  the  course  of  it. 


496  WEBSTER. 

harassed  frame,  straining  westward  his  anxious  and  eager  eyes, 
till  Heaven  at  last  granted  him  a  moment  of  rapture  and  ec- 
stasy, in  blessing  his  vision  with  the  sight  of  the  unknown  world. 

Nearer  to  our  times,  more  closely  connected  with  our  fates, 
and  therefore  still  more  interesting  to  our  feelings  and  affec- 
tions, is  the  settlement  of  our  own  country  by  colonists  from 
England.  We  cherish  every  memorial  of  these  worthy  ances- 
tors; we  celebrate  their  patience  and  fortitude;  we  admire 
their  daring  enterprise  ;  we  teach  our  children  to  venerate  their 
piety;  and  we  are  justly  proud  of  being  descended  from  men 
who  have  set  the  world  an  example  of  founding  civil  institu- 
tions on  the  great  and  united  principles  of  human  freedom  and 
human  knowledge.  To  us,  their  children,  the  story  of  their 
labours  and  sulTerings  can  never  lie  without  its  interest.  We, 
shall  not  stand  unmoved  on  the  shore  of  Plymouth,  while  the 
sea  continues  to  wash  it ;  nor  will  our  brethren  in  another  early 
;\nd  ancient  Colony  forget  the  place  of  its  first  establishment, 
till  their  river  shall  cease  to  How  by  it.  Xo  vigour  of  youth, 
no  maturity  of  manhood,  will  lead  the  nation  to  forget  the  spots 
where  its  infancy  was  cradled  and  defended. 

But  the  great  event  in  the  history  of  the  continent,  which  we 
are  now  met  here  to  commemorate,  that  prodigy  of  modern 
times,  at  once  the  wonder  and  the  blessing  of  the  world,  is  the 
American  Revolution.  In  a  day  of  extraordinary  prosperity 
and  happiness,  of  high  national  honour,  distinction,  and  power, 
we  are  brought  together,  in  this  place,  by  our  love  of  country, 
by  our  admiration  of  exalted  character,  by  our  gratitude  for 
signal  services  and  patriotic  devotion. 

The  Society  whose  organ  I  am  was  formed  for  the  purpi 
rearing  some  honourable  and  durable  monument  to  the  memory 
of  the  early  friends  of  American  Independence.  They  have 
thought  that  for  this  object  no  time  could  be  more  propitious 
than  the  present  prosperous  and  peaceful  period  ;  that  no  place 
could  claim  preference  over  this  memorable  spot  ;  and  that  no 
day  could  be  more  auspicious  to  the  undertaking  than  the  anni- 
versary of  the  battle  which  was  here  fought.  The  foundation 
of  that  monument  we  have  now  laid.  With  solemnities  suited 
to  the  occasion,  with  prayers  to  Almighty  God  for  His  blessing, 
and  in  the  midst  of  this  cloud  of  witnesses,  we  have  begun  the 
work.  We  trust  it  will  be  prosecuted,  and  that,  springing  from 
a  broad  foundation,  rising  high  in  massive  solidity  and  una- 
dorned grandeur,  it  may  remain  as  long  as  Heaven  permits  the 
works  of  man  to  last,  a  fit  emblem  both  of  the  events  in  memory 
of  which  it  is  raised  and  of  the  gratitude  of  those  who  have 
reared  it. 

We  know,  indeed,  that  the  record  of  illustrious  actions  is 


BUNKER-HILL  MONUMENT  BEGUN.  497 

most  safely  deposited  in  the  universal  remembrance  of  man- 
kind. We  know  that,  if  we  could  cause  this  structure  to  as- 
cend, not  only  till  it  reached  the  skies,  but  till  it  pierced  them, 
its  broad  surfaces  could  still  contain  but  part  of  that  which,  in 
an  age  of  knowledge,  hath  already  been  spread  over  the  Earth, 
and  which  history  charges  itself  with  making  known  to  all  fu- 
ture times.  We  know  that  no  inscription  on  entablatures  less 
broad  than  the  Earth  itself  can  carry  information  of  the  events 
we  commemorate  where  it  has  not  already  gone  ;  and  that  no 
structure,  which  shall  not  outlive  the  duration  of  letters  and 
knowledge  among  men,  can  prolong  the  memorial.  But  our 
object  is,  by  this  edifice,  to  show  our  own  deep  sense  of  the 
value  and  importance  of  the  achievements  of  our  ancestors ; 
and,  by  presenting  this  work  of  gratitude  to  the  eye,  to  keep 
alive  similar  sentiments,  and  to  foster  a  constant  regard  for  the 
principles  of  the  Revolution.  Human  beings  are  composed,  not 
of  reason  only,  but  of  imagination  also,  and  sentiment;  and 
that  is  neither  wasted  nor  misapplied  which  is  appropriated  to 
the  purpose  of  giving  right  direction  to  sentiments,  and  opening 
proper  springs  of  feeling  in  the  heart.  Let  it  not  be  supposed 
that  our  object  is  to  perpetuate  national  hostility,  or  even  to 
cherish  a  mere  military  spirit.  It  is  higher,  purer,  nobler.  Wo 
consecrate  our  work  to  the  spirit  of  national  independence,  and 
we  wish  that  the  light  of  peace  may  rest  upon  it  for  ever.  Wo 
rear  a  memorial  of  our  conviction  of  that  unmeasured  benefit 
which  has  boon  conferred  on  our  own  land,  and  of  the  happy 
influences  which  have  been  produced,  by  the  same  events,  on 
the  general  interests  of  mankind.  We  come,  as  Americans,  to 
mark  a  spot  which  must  for  ever  be  dear  to  us  and  our  poster- 
ity. We  wish  that  whosoever,  in  all  coming  time,  shall  turn  his 
eye  hither,  may  behold  that  the  place  is  not  undistinguished 
where  the  first  great  battle  of  the  Revolution  was  fought.  We 
wish  that  this  structure  may  proclaim  the  magnitude  and  im- 
portance of  that  event  to  every  class  and  every  age.  We  wish 
that  infancy  may  learn  the  purpose  of  its  erection  from  mater- 
nal lips,  and  that  weary  and  withered  age  may  behold  it,  and  bo 
solaced  by  the  recollections  which  it  suggests.  We  wish  that 
labour  may  look  up  here,  and  be  proud,  in  the  midst  of  its  toil. 
We  wish  that,  in  those  days  of  disaster  which,  as  they  come  on 
all  nations,  must  be  expected  to  come  on  us  also,  desponding 
patriotism  may  turn  its  eyes  hitherward,  and  bo  assured  that 
the  foundations  of  our  national  power  still  stand  strong.  Wo 
h  that  this  column,  rising  towards  heaven  among  the  pointed 
spires  of  so  many  temples  dedicated  to  God,  may  contribute 
also  to  produce,  in  all  minds,  a  pious  feeling  of  dependence  and 
gratitude.  We  wish,  finally,  that  the  last  object  to  the  sight  of 


498  WEBSTER. 

him  who  loaves  his  native  shore,  and  the  first  to  gladden  his 
who  revisits  it,  may  be  something  which  shall  remind  him  of 
the  liberty  and  the  glory  of  his  country.  Let  it  rise  !  let  it  rise, 
till  it  meet  the  Sun  in  his  coining  ;  let  the  earliest  light  of  the 
morning  gild  it,  and  parting  day  linger  and  play  on  its  summit ! 


BUXKER-HILL  MONUMENT  FINISHED.2 

THE  Bunker-Hill  Monument  is  finished.  Here  it  stands. 
Fortunate  in  the  high  natural  eminence  on  which  it  is  placed, 
higher,  infinitely  higher  in  its  object-  and  purpose,  it  ri>e>  over 
the  land  and  over  the  sea  ;  and,  visible,  at  their  homes,  to  three 
hundred  thousand  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  it  stands  a 
memorial  of  the  last,  and  a  monitor  to  the  present  and  to  all 
succeeding  generations.  I  have  spoken  of  the  loftiness  of  its 
purpose.  If  it  had  been  without  any  other  design  than  the 
creation  of  a  work  of  art,  the  granite  of  which  it  is  composed 
would  have  slept  in  its  native  bed.  It  has  a  purpose,  and  that 
purpose  gives  it  its  character.  That  purpose  enrobes  it  with 
dignity  and  moral  grandeur.  That  well-known  purpose  it  is 
which  causes  us  to  look  up  to  it  with  a  feeling  of  awe.  It  is  it- 
self the  orator  of  this  occasion.  It  is  not  from  my  lips,  it  could 
not  be  from  any  human  lips,  that  that  strain  of  eloquence  is 
this  day  to  flow  most  competent  to  move  and  excite  the  vast 
multitudes  around  me.  The  powerful  speaker  stands  motion- 
less before  us.  It  is  a  plain  shaft.  It  bears  no  inscriptions, 
fronting  to  the  rising  Sun,  from  which  the  future  antiquary 
shall  wipe  the  dust.  Nor  does  the  rising  Sun  cause  tones  of 
music  to  issue  from  its  summit.  But  at  the,  rising  of  the  Sun, 
and  at  the  setting  of  the  Sun  ;  in  the.  blaze  of  noonday,  and  be- 
neath the  milder  effluence  of  lunar  light, —it  looks,  it  speaks,  it 
acts,  to  the  full  comprehension  of  every  American  mind,  and 
the  awakening  of  glowing  enthusiasm  in  every  American  heart. 
Its  silent,  but  awful  utterance ;  its  deep  pathos,  as  it  brings  to 
our  contemplation  the  17th  of  June,  1775,  and  the  consequences 

2  The  address  from  which  this  la  taken  was  delivered  on  the  17th  of  June, 
1S-1:'»,  just,  eighteen  years  alter  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone.  The  monument 
was  completed  in  July,  18^2,  but  the  celebration  of  that  event  was  justly  put 
off  till  the  next  anniversary  of  the  battle.  Weh.-ter  was  Secretary  of  5 
the  time,  and  President  Tyler  and  the  other  members  of  ihe  i.'ablnet  graced  the 
occasion  with  their  presence.  The  throng  of  people  \\;is  c\cn  greater  than  in 
IS-J."),  not  less  than  a  hundred  thousand  being  a>seinbled,  and  among  them 
delcg.it  ions  of  the  descendants  of  New  England  from  the  remotest  parts  of  the 
country. 


BUNKER-HILL  MONUMENT  FINISHED.  499 

which  have  resulted  to  us,  to  our  country,  and  to  the  world, 
from  the  events  of  that  day,  and  which  we  know  must  continue 
to  rain  influence  on  the  destinies  of  mankind  to  the  end  of  time; 
the  elevation  with  which  it  raises  us  high  above  the  ordinary 
feelings  of  life, —  surpass  all  that  the  study  of  the  closet,  or 
even  the  inspiration  of  genius,  can  produce.  To-day  it  speaks 
to  us.  Its  future  auditories  will  be  the  successive  generations 
of  men,  as  they  rise  up  before  it  and  gather  around  it.  Its 
speech  will  be  of  patriotism  and  courage  ;  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty ;  of  free  government ;  of  the  moral  improvement  and 
elevation  of  mankind ;  and  of  the  immortal  memory  of  those 
who,  with  heroic  devotion,  have  sacrificed  their  lives  for  their 
country. 

Banners  and  badges,  processions  and  flags,  announce  to  us, 
that  amidst  this  uncounted  throng  are  thousands  of  natives  of 
New  England  now  residents  in  other  States.  Welcome,  ye  kin- 
dred names,  with  kindred  blood  !  From  the  broad  savannas  of 
the  South,  from  the  newer  regions  of  the  West,  from  amidst 
the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  of  Eastern  origin  who  culti- 
vate the  rich  valley  of  the  Genesee,  or  live  along  the  chain  of 
the  Lakes,  from  tho  mountains  of  Pennsylvania,  and  from 
the  thronged  cities  of  the  coast,  welcome,  welcome !  Wher- 
ever else  you  may  be  strangers,  here  you  are  all  at  home. 
You  assemble  at  this  shrine  of  liberty,  near  the  family  altars  at 
which  your  earliest  devotions  were  paid  to  Heaven;  near  to  the 
temples  of  worship  first  entered  by  you,  and  near  to  the  schools 
and  colleges  in  which  your  education  was  received.  You  bring 
names  which  are  on  the  rolls  of  Lexington,  Concord,  and  Bun- 
ker Ilill.  You  come,  some  of  you,  once  more  to  be  embraced  by 
an  aged  Revolutionary  father,  or  to  receive  another,  perhaps  a 
l:tst,  blessing,  bestowed  in  love  and  tears  by  a  mother,  yet  sur- 
viving to  witness  and  to  enjoy  your  prosperity  and  happiness. 

But  if  family  associations  and  the  recollections  of  the  past 
bring  you  hither  with  greater  alacrity,  and  mingle  with  your 
greeting  much  of  local  attachment  and  private  affection,  greet- 
ing also  be  given,  free  and  hearty  greeting,  to  every  American 
i-iti/<-n  who  treads  this  sacred  soil  with  patriotic  feeling,  and 
respires  with  pleasure  in  an  atmosphere  perfumed  with  the 
recollections  of  1775 !  This  occasion  is  respectable,  nay,  it  is 
sublime,  by  the  nationality  of  its  sentiment.  Among  the  sev- 
enteen millions  of  happy  people  who  form  the  American 
community,  there  is  not  one  who  has  not  an  interest  in  this 
monument,  sis  there  is  not  one  that  has  not  a  deep  and  abiding 
interest  in  that  which  it  commemorates. 

Woe  betide  the  man  who  brings  to  this  day's  worship  feeling 
less  than  wholly  American  I  Woe  betide  the  man  who  can 


500  WEBSTER. 

stand  here  with  the  fires  of  local  resentments  burning,  or  the 
purpose  of  fomenting  local  jealousies  and  the  stripes  of  local 
interests  festering  and  rankling  in  his  heart.  Union,  estab- 
lished in  justice,  in  patriotism,  and  the  most  plain  and  obvious 
common  interest, —  union,  founded  on  the  same  love  of  liberty, 
cemented  by  blood  shed  in  the  same  common  cause,— union  has 
been  the  source  of  all  our  glory  and  greatness  thus  far,  and  is 
the  ground  of  all  our  highest  hopes.  This  column  stands  on 
union.  I  know  not  that  it  might  not  keep  its  position,  if  the 
American  Union,  in  the  mad  conflict  of  human  passions,  and  in 
the  strife  of  parties  and  factions,  should  be  broken  up  and  de- 
stroyed. I  know  not  that  it  would  totter  and  fall  to  the  earth, 
and  mingle  its  fragments  with  the  fragments  of  Liberty  and  the 
Constitution,  when  State  shall  be  separated  from  State,  and 
faction  and  dismemberment  obliterate  forever  all  the  hopes  of 
the  founders  of  our  republic,  and  the  great  inheritance  of  their 
children.  It  might  stand.  But  who,  from  beneath  the  weight 
of  mortification  and  shame  that  would  oppress  him,  could  look 
up  to  behold  it?  Whose  eyeballs  would  not  be  seared  by  such 
a  spectacle  ?  For  my  part,  should  I  live  to  such  a  time,  I  shall 
avert  my  eyes  from  it  for  ever. 


ADAMS  IN  THE  CONGRESS  OF  1776.8 

THE  eloquence  of  Mr.  Adams  resembled  his  general  character, 
and  formed  indeed  a  part  of  it  It  was  bold,  manly,  and  ener- 
getic ;  and  such  the  crisis  required.  —  When  public  bodies  are 
to  be  addressed  on  momentous  occasions,  when  great  int 
are  at  stake,  and  strong  passion*  excited,  nothing  is  valuable 
in  speech,  further  than  as  it  is  connected  with  high  intellecual 
and  moral  endowments.  Clearness,  force,  and  earnestness  are 
the  qualities  which  produce  conviction.  True  eloquence,  in- 
deed, does  not  consist  in  speech.  It  cannot  be  brought  from 
far.  Labour  and  learning  may  toil  for  it,  but  they  will  toil  in 
vain.  Words  and  phrases  may  be  marshalled  in  every  way,  but 

3  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  second  and  third  Presidents  of  the 
United  States,  l>oth  died  within  a  low  hours  of  each  other,  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1820.  This  coincidence  was  so  remarkable  as  to  excite  universal  interest,  and 
is  said  to  have  a  fleeted  the  public  mind  moi-e  deeply  than  any  event  since  the 
death  of  Washington,  which  occurred  on  the  14th  of  December,  1799.  The  eity 
authorities  of  Boston  took  measures  for  having  the  event  commemorated  in  a 
suitable  manner;  and  on  the  id  of  August  following,  Webster  delivered  his 
celebrated  Discourse  on  Adams  and  Jefferson  in  Faneuil  Hall.  I  here  give  that 
portion  of  the  Discourse  which  is  generally  considered  the  best. 


ADAMS   IN   THE   CONGRESS   OF  1776.  501 

they  cannot  compass  it.  It  must  exist  in  the  man,  in  the  subject, 
and  in  the  occasion.  Affected  passion,  intense  expression,  the 
pomp  of  declamation,  all  may  aspire  after  it ;  they  cannot  reach 
it.  It  comes,  if  it  come  at  all,  like  the  outbreaking  of  a  fountain 
from  the  earth,  or  the  bursting  forth  of  volcanic  fires,  with 
spontaneous,  original,  native  force.  The  graces  taught  in  the 
schools,  the  costly  ornaments  and  studied  contrivances  of  speech 
shock  and  disgust  men,  when  their  own  lives,  and  the  fate  of 
their  wives,  their  children,  and  their  country,  hang  on  the  deci- 
sion of  the  hour.  Then  words  have  lost  their  power,  rhetoric  is 
vain,  and  all  elaborate  oratory  contemptible.  Even  genius  itself 
then  feels  rebuked  and  subdued,  as  in  the  presence  of  higher 
qualities.  Then  patriotism  is  eloquent;  then  self-devotion  is 
eloquent.  The  clear  conception,  outrunning  the  deductions  of 
logic,  the  high  purpose,  the  firm  resolve,  the  dauntless  spirit, 
speaking  on  the  tongue,  beaming  from  the  eye,  informing  every 
feature,  and  urging  the  whole  man  onward,  right  onward  to  his 
object, — this,  this  is  eloquence;  or  rather  it  is  something  greater 
and  higher  than  all  eloquence;  it  is  action,  noble,  sublime, 
godlike  action. 

In  July,  1776,  the  controversy  had  passed  the  stage  of  argu- 
ment. An  appeal  had  been  made  to  force,  and  opposing  armies 
were  in  the  field.  Congress,  then,  was  to  decide  whether  the 
tic  which  had  so  long  bound  us  to  the  parent  State  was  to  be 
severed  at  once,  and  severed  for  ever.  All  the  Colonies  had 
signified  their  resolution  to  abide  by  this  decision,  and  the 
people  looked  for  it  with  the  most  intense  anxiety.  And  surely 
fellow-citizens,  never,  never  were  men  called  to  a  more  impor- 
tant political  deliberation.  If  we  contemplate  it  from  the  point 
where  they  then  stood,  no  question  could  be  more  full  of  inter- 
est :  if  we  look  at  it  now,  and  judge  of  its  importance  by  its 
effects,  it  appears  in  still  greater  magnitude. 

Let  us,  then,  bring  before  us  the  assembly  which  was  about  to 
decide  a  question  thus  big  with  the  fate  of  empire.  Let  us  open 
their  doors,  and  look  in  upon  their  deliberations.  Let  us  sur- 
vey the  anxious  and  care-worn  countenances,  let  us  hear  the 
firm-toned  voices,  of  this  band  of  patriots. 

HANCOCK  presides  over  the  solemn  sitting ;  and  one  of  those 
not  yet  prepared  to  pronounce  for  absolute  independence  is  on 
the  floor,  and  is  urging  his  reasons  for  dissenting  from  the  dec- 
laration. 

"Let  us  pause!  This  step,  once  taken,  cannot  be  retraced. 
This  resolution,  once  passed,  will  cut  off  all  hope  of  reconcilia- 
tion. If  success  attend  the  arms  of  England,  wo  shall  then  be 
no  longer  Colonies,  with  charters  and  with  privileges:  these 
will  all  bo  forfeited  by  this  act;  and  wo  shall  be  in  the  condi- 


502  WEBSTER. 

tion  of  other  conquered  people,  at  the  mercy  of  the  conquerors. 
For  ourselves,  we  may  be  ready  to  run  the  hazard  ;  but  are  we 
ready  to  curry  the  country  to  that  length  V  Is  meeesfl  so  prob- 
able  as  to  justify  it?  Where  is  the  military,  where  the  naval 
power,  by  which  we  are  to  resist  the  whole  strength  of  the  arm 
of  England?  for  she  will  exert  that  strength  to  the  utmost. 
Can  we  rely  on  the  constancy  and  perseverance  of  the  people? 
or  will  they  not  act  as  the  people  of  other  countries  have  acted, 
and,  wearied  with  a  long  war,  submit,  in  the  end,  to  a  worse 
oppression?  While  we  stand  on  our  old  ground,  and  insist  on 
redress  of  grievances,  we  know  we  are  right,  and  are  not  an- 
swerable  for  consequences.  Nothing  then  can  be  imputed  to 
us.  But  if  we  now  change  our  object,  carry  our  pretentious 
further,  and  set  up  for  absolute  independence,  we  shall  lose  the 
sympathy  of  mankind.  We  shall  no  longer  be  defending  what 
we  possess,  but  struggling  for  something  which  we  never  did 
JS,  and  which  we  have  solemnly  and  uniformly  disclaimed 
all  intention  of  pursuing,  from  the  very  outset  of  the  troubles. 
Abandoning  thus  our  old  ground  of  rcsi.Mance  only  to  arbitrary 
acts  of  oppression,  the  nations  will  believe  the  whole  to  have 
been  mere  pretence,  and  they  will  look  on  us,  not  as  injured, 
but  as  ambitious  subjects.  I  shudder  before  this  responsibility. 
It  will  be  on  us,  if,  relinquishing  the  ground  on  which  we  have 
stood  so  long,  and  stood  so  safely,  we  now  proclaim  indepen- 
dence, and  carry  on  the  war  for  that  object,  while  these  cities 
burn,  these  pleasant  fields  whiten  and  bleach  with  the  bones  of 
their  owners,  and  these  streams  run  blood.  It  will  be  upon  us, 
it  will  be  upon  us,  if,  failing  to  maintain  this  unseasonable  and 
ill-judged  Declaration,  a  sterner  despotism,  maintained  by  mil- 
itary power,  shall  bo  established  over  our  posterity,  when  we 
ourselves,  given  up  by  an  exhausted,  a  harassed,  a  misled  peo- 
ple, shall  have  expiated  our  rashness  and  atoned  for  our  pre- 
sumption on  the  scaffold." 

It  was  for  Mr.  Adams  to  reply  to  arguments  like  these.  Wo 
know  his  opinions,  and  we  know  his  character,  lie  would  com- 
mence with  his  accustomed  directness  and  earnest n< 

"Sink  or  swim,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish,  I  give  my  hand 
and  my  heart  to  this  vote.  It  is  true  indeed  that  in  the  begin- 
ning we  aimed  not  at  independence.  But  there's  a  Divinity 
which  shapes  our  ends.  The  injustice  of  England  lias  driven 
us  to  arms ;  and,  blinded  to  her  own  interest  for  our  good,  she 
has  obstinately  persisted,  till  independence  is  no\v  within  our 
grasp.  Wo  have  but  to  reach  forth  to  it,  and  it  is  ours.  Why 
then  should  wo  defer  the  Declaration?  Is  any  man  so  weak  as 
now  to  hope  fora  reconciliation  with  England,  which  shall  leave 
either  safety  to  the  country  and  its  liberties,  or  safety  to  his  life 


ADAMS   IX  THE   CONGRESS  OF  1776.  503 

and  his  own  honour?  Are  not  you,  Sir,  who  sit  in  that  chair,  is 
not  he,  our  venerable  colleague  near  you,  are  you  not  both  al- 
ready the  proscribed  and  predestined  objects  of  punishment  and 
of  vengeance?  Cut  off  from  all  hope  of  royal  clemency,  what 
are  you,  what  can  you  be,  while  the  power  of  England  remains, 
but  outlaws  ?  If  we  postpone  independence,  do  we  mean  to  carry 
on,  or  to  give  up,  the  war?  Do  we  mean  to  submit  to  the  meas- 
ures of  Parliament,  Boston-Port  Bill  and  all?  Do  we  mean  to 
submit,  and  consent  that  we  ourselves  shall  be  ground  to  pow- 
der, and  our  country  and  its  rights  trodden  down  in  the  dust? 
I  know  we  do  not  mean  to  submit  We  never  shall  submit. 
Do  we  mean  to  violate  that  most  solemn  obligation  ever  entered 
into  by  men,  that  plighting,  before  God,  of  our  sacred  honour 
to  Washington,  when,  putting  him  forth  to  incur  the  dangers  of 
war,  as  well  as  the  political  hazards  of  the  times,  we  promised 
to  adhere  to  him,  in  every  extremity,  with  our  fortunes  and  our 
lives  ?  I  know  there  is  not  a  man  here,  who  would  not  rather 
see  a  general  conflagration  sweep  over  the  land,  or  an  earth- 
quake sink  it,  than  one  jot  or  tittle  of  that  plighted  faith  fall  to 
the  ground.  For  myself,  having,  twelve  months  ago,  in  this 
place,  moved  you,  that  George  Washington  bo  appointed  com- 
mander of  the  forces  raised,  or  to  be  raised,  for  defence  of 
American  liberty,  may  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning,  and 
my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth,  if  I  hesitate  or 
waver  in  the  support  I  give  him. 

"  The  war,  then,  must  go  on.  We  must  fight  it  through.  And 
if  the  war  must  go  on,  why  put  off  longer  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence? That  measure  will  strengthen  us.  It  will  give 
us  character  abroad.  The  nations  will  then  treat  with  us, 
which  they  never  can  do  while  we  acknowledge  ourselves  sub- 
jects in  arms  against  our  sovereign.  Nay,  I  maintain  that  En ;;- 
i'liid  herself  will  sooner  treat  for  peace  with  us  on  the  footing 
of  independence  than  consent,  by  repealing  her  Acts,  to  ac- 
knowledge that  her  whole  conduct  toward  us  has  been  a  course 
of  injustice  and  oppression.  Tier  pride  will  be  less  wounded  by 
submitting  to  that  course  of  things  which  now  predestinates 
our  independence  than  by  yielding  the  points  in  controversy 
to  her  rebellious  subjects.  The  former  she  would  regard  as  the 
result  of  fortune ;  the  latter  she  would  feel  as  her  own  deep 
disgrace.  Why  then,  why  then,  Sir,  do  we  not  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible change  this  from  a  civil  to  a  national  war?  And  since  wo 
must  light  it  through,  why  not  put  ourselves  in  a  state  to  enjoy 
all  the  benefits  of  victory,  if  we  gain  the  victory? 

"  If  we  fail,  it  can  be  no  worse  for  us.    But  we  shall  not  fail^ 
The  cause  will  raise  up  armies;  the  cause  will  create  navies. 
The  people,  the  people,  if  we  are  true  to  them,  will  carry  us. 


504  WEBSTER. 

and  will  carry  themselves,  gloriously  through  this  struggle. 
I  care  not  how  fickle  other  people  have  been  found.  I  know 
the  people  of  these  Colonies,  and  I  know  that  resistance  to 
British  aggression  is  deep  and  settled  in  their  hearts,  and 
cannot  be  eradicated.  Every  Colony,  indeed,  has  expressed  its 
willingness  to  follow,  if  we  but  take  the  lead.  Sir,  the  Declara- 
tion will  inspire  the  people  with  increased  courage.  Instead  of 
a  long  and  bloody  war  for  restoration  of  privileges,  for  redress  of 
grievances,  for  chartered  immunities,  hold  under  a  British  King, 
set  before  them  the  glorious  object  of  entire  independence, 
and  it  will  breathe  into  them  anew  the  breath  of  life.  Read 
this  Declaration  at  the  head  of  the  army  ;  every  sword  will  bo 
drawn  from  its  scabbard,  and  the  solemn  vow  uttered,  to  main- 
tain it,  or  to  perish  on  the  bed  of  honour.  Publish  it  from  the 
pulpit ;  religion  will  approve  it,  and  the  love  of  religious  lib- 
erty will  cling  round  it,  resolved  to  stand  with  it,  or  fall  with  it. 
Send  it  to  the  public  halls  ;  proclaim  it  there ;  let  them  hear  it 
who  heard  the  lirst  roar  of  the  enemy's  cannon  ;  let  them  see  it 
who  saw  their  brothers  and  their  sons  fall  on  the  field  of  Bunker 
Hill,  and  in  the  streets  of  Lexington  and  Concord,  and  the  very 
walls  will  cry  out  in  its  support. 

"Sir,  I  know  the  uncertainty  of  human  affairs,  but  I  see,  I  see 
clearly,  through  this  day's  business.  You  and  I  indeed  may 
rue  it.  We  may  not  live  to  the  time  when  this  Declaration 
shall  be  made  good.  We  may  die ;  die,  colonists ;  die,  slaves  ; 
die,  it  may  be,  ignominiously  and  on  the  scaffold.  Be  it  so ; 
be  it  so  1  If  it  be  the  pleasure  of  Heaven  that  my  country  shall 
require  the  poor  offering  of  my  life,  the  victim  shall  be  ready  at 
the  appointed  hour  of  sacrifice,  come  when  that  hour  may. 
But  while  I  do  live,  let  me  have  a  country,  or  at  least  the  hope 
of  a  country,  and  that  a  free  country. 

"But;  whatever  may  be  our  fate,  be  assured,  be  assured,  that 
this  Declaration  will  stand.  It  may  cost  treasure,  and  it  may  cost 
blood  ;  but  it  will  stand,  and  it  will  richly  compensate  for  both. 
Through  the  thick  gloom  of  the  present,  I  seethe  brightness  of 
the  future,  as  the  Sun  in  heaven.  We  shall  make  this  a  glori- 
ous, an  immortal  day.  When  we  are  in  our  graves,  our  children 
will  honour  it.  They  will  celebrate  it  with  thanksgiving,  with 
festivity,  with  bonfires,  and  illuminations.  On  its  annual  return 
they  will  shed  tears,  copious,  gushing  tears,  not  of  subjection 
and  slavery,  not  of  agony  and  distress,  but  of  exultation,  of  grat- 
itude, and  of  joy.  Sir,  before  God,  I  believe  the  hour  is  come. 
My  judgment  approves  this  measure,  and  my  whole  heart  is  in 
it.  All  that  I  have,  and  all  that  I  am,  and  all  that  I  hope,  in  this 
life,  1  am  now  ready  here  to  stake  upon  it ;  and  I  leave  off,  as  I 


RIGHT  USE  OF  LEARNING.  505 

began,  that  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish,  I  am  for  the  Declara- 
tion. It  is  my  living  sentiment,  and  by  the  blessing  of  God  it 
shall  be  my  dying  sentiment,  Independence  now,  and  INDEPEN- 
DENCE FOR  EVER."4 


EIGHT  USE  OF  LEARNING. 

LITERATURE  sometimes  disgusts,  and  pretension  to  it  much 
oftener  disgusts,  by  appearing  to  hang  loosely  on  the  character, 
like  something  foreign  or  extraneous,  not  a  part,  but  an  ill- 
adjusted  appendage ;  or  by  seeming  to  overload  and  weigh  it 
down  by  its  unsightly  bulk,  like  the  productions  of  bad  taste  in 
architecture,  where  there  is  massy  and  cumbrous  ornament, 
without  strength  or  solidity  of  column.  This  has  exposed 
learning,  and  especially  classical  learning,  to  reproach.  Men 
have  seen  that  it  might  exist  without  mental  superiority,  with- 
out vigour,  without  good  taste,  and  without  utility.  But  in 
such  cases  classical  learning  has  only  not  inspired  natural  tal- 
ent ;  or,  at  most,  it  has  but  made  original  feebleness  of  intellect, 
and  natural  bluntness  of  perception,  something  more  conspicu- 
ous. The  question,  after  all,  if  it  be  a  question,  is,  whether 
literature,  ancient  as  well  as  modern,  does  not  assist  a  good 
understanding,  improve  natural  good  taste,  add  polished  armour 
to  native  strength,  and  render  its  possessor,  not  only  more  ca- 
p.iMo  of  deriving  private  happiness  from  contemplation  and 
reflection,  but  more  accomplished  also  for  action  in  the  affairs 
of  life,  and  especially  for  public  action.  They  whose  memories 
we  now  honour  were  learned  men  ;  but  their  learning  was  kept 
in  its  proper  place,  and  made  subservient  to  the  uses  and  ob- 
jects of  life.  They  wrere  scholars,  not  common  nor  superficial ; 
but  their  scholarship  was  so  in  keeping  with  their  character,  so 
liK-nded  and  inwrought,  that  careless  observers,  or  bad  judges, 
•ring  an  ostentatious  display  of  it,  might  infer  that  it  did 
not  exist ;  forgetting,  or  not  knowing,  that  classical  learning,  in 
men  who  act  in  conspicuous  public  stations,  perform  duties 

4  In  reference  to  the  foregoing  speech,  I  cannot  do  better  than  by  quoting 
from  Curti.-'s  Life  of  Webster:  "President  Fillmore  informs  me  that  ho  onco 
:i>ked  Mr.  Webster,  in  familiar  conversation,  what  authority  he  had  for  putting 
thi<  speech  into  the  mouth  of  John  Adams,  the  Congress  at  that  period  having 
always  s::t  with  dosed  doors.  Mr.  Webster  replied  that  he  had  no  authority  for 
'iiiient.s  of  the  speech  excepting  Mr.  Adams's  {general  character,  and  a 
letter  lie  had  written  to  his  wife,  that  had  frequently  been  published.  After  a 
short  pause,  Mr.  Webber  added:  'I  will  tell  you  what  is  not  generally  known. 
I  wrote  that  speech  one,  morning  in  my  library,  and  when  it  was  finished  my 
paper  was  wet  with  tears.'" 


506  WEBSTER. 

which  exercise  the  faculty  of  writing,  or  address  popular,  delib- 
erative, or  judicial  bodies,  is  often  felt  where  it  is  little  seen, 
and  sometimes  felt  more  effectually  because  it  is  not  seen  at 
all. — Discourse  on  Adams  and  Jefferson. 


THE  MURDER  OF  MR.  WHITE.6 

I  AM  little  accustomed,  Gentlemen,  to  the  part  which  I  am 
now  attempting  to  perform.  Hardly  more  than  once  or  twice 
has  it  happened  to  me  to  be  concerned  on  the  side  of  the  gov- 
ernment in  any  criminal  prosecution  whatever ;  and  never,  until 
the  present  occasion,  in  any  case  alTecting  life. 

But  I  very  much  regret  that  it  should  have  been  thought  nec- 
essary to  suggest  to  you,  that  I  am  brought  here  to  "  hurry  you 
against  the  law  and  beyond  the  evidence."  1  hope  I  have  too 
much  regard  for  justice,  and  too  much  respect  for  my  own  char- 
acter, to  attempt  either ;  and,  were  1  to  make  such  attempt,  I 
am  sure  that  in  this  court  nothing  can  be  carried  against  the 
law,  and  that  gentlemen,  intelligent  and  just  as  you  are,  are 
not,  by  any  power,  to  be  hurried  beyond  the  evidence.  Though 
I  could  well  have  wished  to  shun  this  occasion,  I  have  not  felt 
at  liberty  to  withhold  my  professional  assistance, when  it  is  sup- 

5  The  argument  from  which  this  famous  passage  is  taken  was  made  to  the 
jury,  in  August,  1830,  at  a  special  session  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts, 
held  in  Salem,  for  the  trial  of  John  F.  and  Joseph  J.  Knapp,  charged  with  jiar- 
ticipating  in  the  murder  of  Captain  Joseph  White.  The  deed  of  murder  \\ -as 
actually  committed  by  the  hand  of  one  Richard  Cn»\\  nin>hicld,  who  had  hren 
hired  by  the  Knapps  to  do  it  for  $1,000.  While  Crowninshicld  and  the  Knapps 
were  iu  prison  awaiting  trial,  J.  J.  Knapp,  under  a  pledge  of  indemnity,  made 
a  full  eonfe.-sion  of  the  whole  affair;  and  Crowninshield,  having  heard  of  this 
confession,  soon  after  committed  suicide  in  the  prison.  Knapp  thereupon  with- 
drew his  confession,  and  refused  to  testify  in  the  trial.  This  released  the  oilier 
party  from  the  pledge;  and  then  J.  F.  Knapp  was  indicted  as  principal  in  the. 
murder,  and  his  brother  as  an  accessary.  Doth  of  the  Knapps  were  convicted 
of  the  crime,  and  executed.  Web.-ter  was  engaged  by  the  prosecuting  officers 
of  the  State  to  aid  them  in  the  case.  The  opposing  counsel  weiv  Mr.  Franklin 
Dexter  and  Mr.  W.  II.  Gardiner,  men  eminent  for  ability  and  learning,  who  did 
their  utmost  in  the  defence.  Some  objection  was  made  to  Webster's  having  a. 
hand  in  the  trial,  but  was  overruled;  and  Mr.  Dexter  complained  that  lie  had 
bet  n  brought  there  to  "  hurry  the  jury  against  the  law  and  bey  OIK  It  he  evidence." 
The  portion  of  Webster's  argument  here  given  has  stood  the  hardest  trial,  per- 
haps, that  any  thing  of  the  sort  can  undergo:  it  has  been  a  favourite  piece  in 
school  and  college  declamation  ever  since;  and  would  have  been  staled  long  ere 
this,  it'any  thing  could  stale  it.  But  no  frequency  of  such  use  can  take  the  spirit 
and  freshness  out  of  it  Ami  it  gains  much  in  effect  from  u  full  knowledge  of  Uie 
circumstauces  of  the  case. 


THE  MURDER  OP  MR.  WHITE.  50T 

posed  that  I  may  be  in  some  degree  useful  in  investigating  and 
discovering  the  truth  respecting  this  most  extraordinary  mur- 
der. It  has  seemed  to  be  a  duty  incumbent  on  me,  as  on  every 
other  citizen,  to  do  my  best  and  my  utmost  to  bring  to  light  the 
perpetrators  of  this  crime.  Against  the  prisoner  at  the  bar,  as 
an  individual,  I  cannot  have  the  slightest  prejudice.  I  would 
not  do  him  the  smallest  injury  or  injustice.  But  I  do  not  affect 
to  be  indifferent  to  the  discovery  and  the  punishment  of  this 
deep  guilt.  I  cheerfully  share  in  the  opprobrium,  how  great 
soever  it  may  be,  which'  is  cast  on  those  who  feel  and  manifest 
an  anxious  concern  that  all  who  had  a  part  in  planning,  or  a 
hand  in  executing,  this  deed  of  midnight  assassination,  may  be 
brought  to  answer  for  their  enormous  crime  at  the  bar  of  pub- 
lic justice. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  a  most  extraordinary  case.  In  some  respects, 
it  has  hardly  a  precedent  anywhere ;  certainly  none  in  our 
Xe\v  England  history.  This  bloody  drama  exhibited  no  sud- 
denly-excited, ungovernable  rage.  The  actors  in  it  were  not 
surprised  by  any  lion-like  temptation  springing  upon  their  vir- 
tue, and  overcoming  it,  before  resistance  could  begin.  Nor  did 
they  do  the  deed  to  glut  savage  vengeance,  or  satiate  long-settled 
and  deadly  hate.  It  was  a  cool,  calculating,  money-making  mur- 
der. It  was  all  "hire  and  salary,  not  revenge."  It  was  the 
weighing  of  money  against  life ;  the  counting-out  of  so  many 
pi.  •<•«•>  of  silver  against  so  many  ounces  of  blood. 

An  aged  man,  without  an  enemy  in  the  world,  in  his  own 
house  and  in  his  own  bed,  is  made  the  victim  of  a  butcherly 
murder  for  mere  pay.  Truly,  here  is  a  new  lesson  for  painters 
and  poets.  Whoever  shall  hereafter  draw  the  portrait  of  mur- 
der, if  he  will  show  it  as  it  lias  been  exhibited,  where  such 
:;:nle  was  lust  to  have  been  looked  for,  in  the  very  bosom  of 
our  Xew  Kn'-ilund  society,  let  him  not  give  it  the  grim  visage 
of  Moloch,  the  brow  knitted  by  revenge,  the  face  black  with 
settled  hate,  and  the  bloodshot  eye  emitting  livid  fires  of  mal- 
ice. Let  him  draw,  rather,  a  decorous,  smooth-faced,  bloodless 
demon ;  a  picture  in  repose,  rather  in  action ;  not  so  much  an 
example  of  human  nature  in  its  depravity,  and  in  its  par- 
oxysms of  crime,  as  an  infernal  being,  a  fiend,  in  the  ordinary 
display  and  development  of  his  character. 

The  deed  was  executed  with  a  degree  of  self-possession  and 
steadiness  equal  to  the  wickedness  with  which  it  was  planned. 
The  circumstances  now  clear  in  evidence  spread  out  the  whole 
scene  before  us.  Deep  sleep  had  fallen  on  the  destined  victim, 
and  on  all  beneath  his  roof.  A  healthful  old  man,  to  whom 
sleep  was  sweet,  the  first  sound  slumbers  of  the  night  held  him 
in  their  soft  but  strong  embrace.  The  assassin  enters,  through 


508  WEBSTER. 

the  window  already  prepared,  into  an  unoccupied  apartment. 
With  noiseless  foot  he  paces  the  lonely  hall,  half-lighted  by  the 
Moon  ;  he  winds  up  the  ascent  of  the  stall's,  and  reaches  the 
door  of  the  chamber.  Of  this,  he  moves  the  lock  by  soft  and 
continued  pressure,  till  it  turns  on  its  hinges  without  noise  ; 
and  he  enters,  and  beholds  his  victim  before  him.  The  room  is 
uncommonly  open  to  the  admission  of  light.  The  face  of  the 
innocent  sleeper  is  turned  from  the  murderer,  and  the  beams 
of  the  Moon,  resting  on  the  grey  locks  of  his  aged  temple,  show 
him  where  to  strike.  The  fatal  blow  is  given  !  and  the  victim 
passes,  without  a  struggle  or  a  motion,  from  the  repose  of  sleep 
to  the  repose  of  death  1  It  is  the  assassin's  purpose  to  make 
sure  work ;  and  he  yet  plies  the  dagger,  though  it  is  obvious 
that  life  has  been  destroyed  by  the  blow  of  the  bludgeon.  lie 
even  raises  the  aged  arm,  that  he  may  not  fail  in  his  aim  at  the 
heart,  and  replaces  it  again  over  the  wounds  of  the  poniard  ! 
To  finish  the  picture,  lie  explores  the  wrist  for  the  pulse  !  lie 
feels  for  it,  and  ascertains  that  it  beats  no  longer  1  It  is  ac- 
complished. The  deed  is  done.  lie  retreats,  retraces  his  steps 
to  the  window,  passes  out  through  it  as  he  came  in,  and  es- 
capes. He  has  done  the  murder.  Xo  eye  has  seen  him,  no  ear 
has  heard  him.  The  secret  is  his  own,  and  it  is  sale  ! 

Ah  !  Gentlemen,  that  was  a  dreadful  mistake.  Such  a  secret 
can  be  safe  nowhere.  The  whole  creation  of  God  has  neither 
nook  nor  corner  where  the  guilty  can  bestow  it,  and  say  it  is 
safe.  Not  to  speak  of  that  Eye  which  glances  through  all  dis- 
guises, and  beholds  every  thing  as  in  the  splendour  of  noon, 
such  secrets  of  guilt  are  never  safe  from  detection  even  by 
men.  True  it  is,  generally  speaking,  that  "murder  will  out." 
True  it  is,  that  Providence  hath  so  ordained,  and  dotli  so  gov- 
ern things,  that  those  who  break  the  great  law  of  Heaven  by 
shedding  man's  blood  seldom  succeed  in  avoiding  discovery. 
Especially,  in  a  case  exciting  so  much  attention  as  this,  discov- 
ery must  come,  and  will  come,  sooner  or  later.  A  thousand 
eyes  turn  at  once  to  explore  every  man,  every  thing,  every  cir- 
cumstance, connected  with  the  time  and  place  ;  a  thousand  ears 
catch  every  whisper ;  a  thousand  excited  minds  intensely  dwell 
on  the  scene,  shedding  all  their  light,  and  ready  to  kindle  the 
slightest  circumstance  into  a  blaze  of  discover}'.  Meantime  the 
guilty  soul  cannot  keep  its  own  secret.  It  is  false  to  itself  ;  or 
rather  it  feels  an  irresistible  impulse  of  conscience  to  be  true  to 
itself.  It  labours  under  its  guilty  possession,  and  knows  not 
what  to  do  with  it.  The  human  heart  was  not  made  for  the 
residence  of  such  an  inhabitant.  It  finds  itself  preyed  on  by  a 
torment  which  it  dares  not  acknowledge  to  God  or  man.  A 
vulture  is  devouring  it,  and  it  can  ask  no  sympathy  or  . 


THE  MURDER   OF  MR.  WHITE.  509 

ance,  either  from  Heaven  or  Earth.  The  secret  which  the 
murderer  possesses  soon  comes  to  possess  him ;  and,  like  the 
evil  spirits  of  which  we  read,  it  overcomes  him,  and  leads  him 
whithersoever  it  will.  He  feels  it  beating  at  his  heart,  rising  to 
his  throat,  and  demanding  disclosure.  He  thinks  the  whole 
world  sees  it  in  his  face,  reads  it  in  his  eyes,  and  almost  hears 
its  workings  in  the  very  silence  of  his  thoughts.  It  has  become 
his  master.  It  betrays  his  discretion,  it  breaks  down  his  cour- 
age, it  conquers  his  prudence.  When  suspicions  from  without 
begin  to  embarrass  him,  and  the  net  of  circumstance  to  entan- 
gle him,  the  fatal  secret  struggles  with  still  greater  violence  to 
burst  forth.  It  must  be  confessed,  it  will  be  confessed  ;  there  is 
no  refuge  from  confession  but  suicide,  and  suicide  is  confession. 

Much  has  been  said,  on  this  occasion,  of  the  excitement  which 
has  existed,  and  still  exists,  and  of  the  extraordinary  measures 
taken  to  discover  and  punish  the  guilty.  Xo  doubt  there  has 
been,  and  is,  much  excitement,  and  strange  indeed  it  would 
be,  had  it  been  otherwise.  Should  not  all  the  peaceable  and 
well-disposed  naturally  feel  concerned,  and  naturally  exert 
themselves  to  bring  to  punishment  the  authors  of  this  secret 
assassination  ?  Was  it  a  thing  to  be  slept  upon  or  forgotten  ? 
Did  you,  Gentlemen,  sleep  quite  as  quietly  in  your  beds  after 
this  murder  as  before?  Was  it  not  a  case  for  rewards,  for 
meetings,  for  committees,  for  the  united  efforts  of  all  the  good, 
to  find  out  a  band  of  murderous  conspirators,  of  midnight  ruff- 
ians, and  to  bring  them  to  the  bar  of  justice  and  law?  If  this 
be  excitement,  is  it  an  unnatural  or  an  improper  excitement? 

It  seems  to  me,  Gentlemen,  that  there  are  appearances  of  an- 
other feeling,  of  a  very  different  nature  and  character ;  not 
very  extensive,  I  would  hope,  but  still  there  is  too  much  evi- 
dence of  its  existence.  Such  is  human  nature,  that  some  per- 
sons lose  their  abhorrence  of  crime  in  their  admiration  of  its 
magnificent  exhibitions.  Ordinary  vice  is  reprobated  by  them, 
but  extraordinary  guilt,  exquisite  wickedness,  the  high  flights 
and  poetry  of  crime,  seize  on  the  imagination,  and  lead  them  to 
forget  the  depths  of  the  guilt,  in  admiration  of  the  excellence  of 
the  performance,  or  the  unequalled  atrocity  of  the  purpose. 
There  are  those  in  our  day  who  have  made  great  use  of  this  in- 
iirmity  of  our  nature,  and  by  means  of  it  done  infinite  injury  to 
the  cause  of  good  morals.  They  have  affected  not  only  the 
taste,  but,  I  fear,  also  the  principles,  of  the  young,  the  heedless, 
and  the  imaginative,  by  the  exhibition  of  interesting  and  beau- 
tiful monsters.  They  render  depravity  attractive,  sometimes 
by  the  polish  of  its  manners,  and  sometimes  by  its  very  extrava- 
gance ;  and  study  to  show  off  crime  under  all  the  advantages  of 
cleverness  and  dexterity.  Gentlemen,  this  is  an  extraordinary 


510  WEBSTER. 

murder,  but  it  is  still  a  murder.  We  are  not  to  lose  ourselves 
in  wonder  at  its  origin,  or  in  gazing  on  its  cool  and  skilful  exe- 
cution. AVe  are  to  detect  and  to  punish  it ;  and  while  we  pro- 
ceed with  caution  against  the  prisoner,  and  are  to  be  sure  that 
we  do  not  visit  on  his  head  the  offences  of  others,  we  are  yet  to 
consider  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  case  of  most  atrocious  crime, 
which  has  not  the  slightest  circumstance  about  it  to  soften 
its  enormity.  It  is  murder;  deliberate,  concerted,  malicious, 
murder. 

The  learned  counsel  for  the  defendant  are  more  concerned, 
they  assure  us,  for  the  law  itself  than  even  for  their  client 
Your  decision  in  this  case,  they  say,  will  stand  as  a  precedent. 
Gentlemen,  we  hope  it  will.  We  hope  it  will  be  a  precedent 
both  of  candour  and  intelligence,  of  fairness  and  of  firmness  ;  a 
precedent  of  good  sense  and  honest  purpose  pursuing  their  in- 
vestigation discreetly,  rejecting  loose  generalities,  exploring  all 
the  circumstances,  weighing  each,  in  search  of  truth,  and  em- 
bracing and  declaring  the  truth  when  found. 

It  is  said  that  "laws  are  made,  not  for  the  punishment  of  the 
guilty,  but  for  the  protection  of  the  innocent."  This  is  not 
quite  accurate  perhaps  ;  but>  if  so,  we  hope  they  will  be  so  ad- 
ministered as  to  give  that  protection.  But  who  are  the  inno- 
cent whom  the  law  would  protect?  Gentlemen,  Joseph  White 
was  innocent.  They  are  innocent  who,  having  lived  in  the  fear 
of  God  through  the  day,  wish  to  sleep  in  His  peace  through  the 
night,  in  their  own  beds.  The  law  is  established,  that  those 
who  live  quietly  may  sleep  quietly ;  that  they  who  do  no  harm 
may  i'eel  none.  The  gentleman  can  think  of  none  that  are  in- 
nocent except  the  prisoner  at  the  bar,  not  yet  convicted.  Is  a 
proved  conspirator  in  murder  innocent?  What  is  innocence? 
How  much  stained  with  blood,  how  reckless  in  crime,  how  deep 
in  depravity  may  it  be,  and  yet  remain  innocence?  The  law  is 
made,  if  we  would  speak  with  entire  accuracy,  to  protect  the  in- 
nocent by  punishing  the  guilty.  But  there  are  those  innocent 
out  of  court,  as  well  as  in  ;  innocent  citizens  not  suspected  of 
crime,  as  well  as  innocent  prisoners  at  the  bar. 

The  criminal  law  is  not  founded  in  a  principle  of  vengeance. 
It  does  not  punish,  that  it  may  inflict  suffering.  The  humanity 
of  the  law  feels  and  regrets  every  pain  it  causes,  every  hour  of 
restraint  it  imposes,  and  more  deeply  still  every  life  it  forfeits. 
But  it  seeks  to  deter  from  crime  by  the  example  of  punishment. 
This  is  its  true,  and  only  true  main  object.  It  restrains  the  lib- 
erty of  the  few  offenders,  that  the  many  who  do  not  offend  may 
enjoy  their  liberty.  It  takes  the  life  of  the  murderer,  that  other 
murders  may  not  be  committed.  The  law  might  open  the  jails, 


THE  MURDER  OF  MR.  WHITE.  511 

and  at  once  set  free  all  persons  accused  of  offences ;  and  it 
ought  to  do  so,  if  it  could  be  made  certain  that  no  other  offences 
would  hereafter  be  committed  ;  because  it  punishes,  not  to  sat- 
isfy any  desire  to  inflict  pain,  but  simply  to  prevent  the  repeti- 
tion of  crimes.  When  the  guilty,  therefore,  are  not  punished, 
the  law  has  so  far  failed  of  its  purpose  ;  the  safety  of  the  inno- 
cent is  so  far  endangered.  Every  unpunished  murder  takes 
away  something  from  the  security  of  every  man's  life.  And 
whenever  a  jury,  through  whimsical  and  ill-founded  scruples, 
suffer  the  guilty  to  escape,  they  make  themselves  answerable 
for  the  augmented  danger  of  the  innocent. 


CHARACTER  OF  LORD  BYRON. 

I  HAVE  read  Tom  Moore's  first  volume  of  Byron's  Life. 
"Whatever  human  imagination  shall  hereafter  picture  of  aim- 
man  being,  I  shall  believe  it  all  within  the  bounds  of  credibility. 
Byron's  case  shows  that  fact  sometimes  runs  by  all  fancy,  as  a 
steamboat  passes  a  scow  at  anchor.  I  have  tried  hard  to  find 
something  in  him  to  like  besides  his  genius  and  his  wit,  but 
there  was  no  other  likable  quality  about  him.  He  was  an  in- 
carnation of  dcmonism.  He  is  the  only  man,  in  English  history, 
for  a  hundred  years,  who  has  boasted  of  infidelity,  and  of  every 
practical  vice,  not  included  in  what  may  be  termed  (what  his 
biographer  does  term)  meanness.  Lord  Bolingbroke,  in  his 
xtravagant  youthful  sallies,  and  the  wicked  Lord  Little- 
ton, were  saints  to  him.  All  Moore  can  say  is,  each  of  his  vices 
had  some  virtue  or  some  prudence  near  it,  which  in  some  sort 
checked  it.  Well,  if  that  were  not  so  in  all,  who  would  escape 
hanging?  The  biographer,  indeed,  says  his  worst  conduct  must 
not  l>e  judged  by  an  ordinary  standard  !  And  this  is  true,  if  a 
favourable  decision  is  looked  for.  Many  excellent  reasons  are 
given  for  his  being  a  bad  husband,  the  sum  of  which  is,  that  he 
was  a  very  bad  man.  I  confess,  I  was  rejoiced  then,  and  am  re- 
joiced now,  that  he  was  driven  out  of  England  by  public  scorn  ; 
for  his  vices  were  not  in  his  passions,  but  in  his  principles.  He 
denied  all  religion  and  all  virtue  from  the  house-top.  Dr.  John- 
son says  there  is  merit  in  maintaining  good  principles,  though 
the  preacher  is  seduced  into  a  violation  of  them.  This  is  true. 
(ii)od  theory  is  something.  But  a  theory  of  living,  and  of  dy- 
ing, too,  made  up  of  the  elements  of  hatred  to  religion,  con- 
tempt of  morals,  and  defiance  of  the  opinion  of  all  the  decent 
part  of  the  public, — when,  before,  has  a  man  of  letters  avowed 


512  WEBSTER. 

it  ?  If  Milton  were  alive,  to  recast  certain  prominent  characters 
in  his  great  epic,  he  could  embellish  them  with  new  traits,  with- 
out violating  probability. — From  a  Letter  to  Mr.  George  Ticknor, 
1830. 


CHARACTER  OF  JUDGE  STORY.6 

YOUR  solemn  announcement,  Mr.  Chief  Justice,  has  con- 
firmed the  sad  intelligence  which  had  already  reached  us 
through  the  public  channels  of  information,  and  deeply  affected 
us  all. 

JOSEPH  STORY,  one  of  the  Associate  Justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  and  for  many  years  the  presiding 
judge  of  this  Circuit,  died  on  Wednesday  evening  last,  at  his 
house  in  Cambridge,  wanting  only  a  few  days  for  the  comple- 
tion of  the  sixty-sixth  year  of  his  age. 

Mr.  Chief  Justice,  one  sentiment  pervades  us  all.  It  is  that 
of  the  most  profound  and  penetrating  grief,  mixed,  nevertheless, 
with  an  assured  conviction  that  the  great  man  whom  we  deplore 
is  yet  with  us  and  in  the  midst  of  us.  He  hath  not  wholly  died. 
He  lives  in  the  affections  of  friends  and  kindred,  and  in  the 
high  regard  of  the  community.  He  lives  in  our  remembrance 
of  his  social  virtues,  his  warm  and  steady  friendships,  and  the 
vivacity  and  richness  of  his  conversation.  He  lives,  and  will 
live  still  more  permanently,  by  his  words  of  written  wisdom,  by 
the  results  of  his  vast  researches  and  attainments,  by  his  im- 
perishable legal  judgments,  and  by  those  juridical  disquisitions 
which  have  stamped  his  name,  all  over  the  civilized  world,  with 
the  character  of  a  commanding  authority. 

Mr.  Chief  Justice,  there  are  consolations  which  arise  to  miti- 
gate our  loss,  and  shed  the  influence  of  resignation  over  un- 
feigned and  heart-felt  sorrow.  We  are  all  penetrated  with 
gratitude  to  God,  that  the  deceased  lived  so  long  ;  that  he  did 
so  much  for  himself,  his  friends,  the  country,  and  the  world ; 
that  his  lamp  went  out,  at  last,  without  unsteadiness  or  flicker- 
ing. He  continued  to  exercise  every  power  of  his  mind  without 
dimness  or  obscuration,  and  every  affection  of  his  heart  with  no 
abatement  of  energy  or  warmth,till  death  drew  an  impenetrable 

0  This  eminent  jurist  and  amiable  man  died  on  the  10th  of  September,  184o. 
On  the  12th,  the  day  of  his  funeral,  the  Suffolk  liar  held  a  meeting  in  the  Circuit 
Court  Room,  Boston,  to  commemorate  the  sad  event,  Chief  Ju>tiee  Sha\v,  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts,  piv>idinir.  I  here  give  the  greater  part,  ;:s 
much  ns  I  can  well  Hnd  space  for,  of  the  noble  and  beautiful  culogium  pro- 
nounced by  Webster  on  that  occasion. 


CHARACTER  OF  JUDGE  STORY.  513 

veil  between  us  and  him.  Indeed,  he  seems  to  us  now,  as  in 
truth  he  is,  not  extinguished  or  ceasing  to  be,  but  only  with- 
drawn ;  as  the  clear  Sun  goes  down  at  its  setting,  not  darkened, 
but  only  no  longer  seen. 

Sir,  there  is  no  purer  pride  of  country  than  that  in  which  we 
may  indulge  when  we  see  America  paying  back  the  great  debt 
of  civilization,  learning,  and  science  to  Europe.  In  this  high 
return  of  light  for  light  and  mind  for  mind,  in  this  august  reck- 
oning and  accounting  between  the  intellects  of  nations,  Joseph 
Story  was  destined  by  Providence  to  act,  and  did  act,  an  impor- 
tant part.  Acknowledging,  as  we  all  acknowledge,  our  obliga- 
tions to  the  original  sources  of  English  law,  as  well  as  of  civil 
liberty,  we  have  seen  in  our  generation  copious  and  salutary 
streams  turning  and  running  backward,  replenishing  their  origi- 
nal fountains,  and  giving  a  fresher  and  a  brighter  green  to  the 
fields  of  English  jurisprudence.  By  a  sort  of  reversed  heredi- 
tary transmission,  the  mother,  without  envy  or  humiliation, 
acknowledges  that  she  has  received  a  valuable  and  cherished 
inheritance  from  the  daughter.  The  profession  in  England 
admits,  witli  frankness  and  candour,  and  with  no  feeling  but 
that  Of  respect  and  admiration,  that  he  whose  voice  we  have  so 
recently  heard  within  these  walls,  but  shall  now  hear  no  more, 
was,  of  all  men  who  have  yet  appeared,  most  fitted  by  the  com- 
prehensiveness of  his  mind,  and  the  vast  extent  and  accuracy 
of  his  attainments,  to  compare  the  codes  of  nations,  to  trace 
their  differences  to  difference  of  origin,  climate,  or  religious  or 
political  institutions,  and  to  exhibit,  nevertheless,  their  concur- 
rence in  those  great  principles  upon  which  the  system  of  human 
civilization  rests. 

Justice,  Sir,  is  the  great  interest  of  man  on  Earth.  It  is  the 
ligament  which  holds  civilized  beings  and  civilized  nations  to- 
gt  -tlier.  Wherever  her  temple  stands,  and  so  long  as  it  is  duly 
honoured,  there  is  a  foundation  for  social  security,  general  hap- 
piness, and  the  improvement  and  progress  of  our  race.  And 
whoever  labours  on  this  edifice  with  usefulness  and  distinction, 
whoever  clears  its  foundations,  strengthens  its  pillars,  adorns 
its  entablatures,  or  contributes  to  raise  its  august  dome  still 
higher  in  the  skies,  connects  himself,  in  name  and  fame  and 
character,  with  that  which  is  and  must  be  as  durable  as  the 
frame  of  human  society. 

This  is  not  the  occasion,  Sir,  nor  is  it  for  me  to  consider  and 
discuss  at  length  the  character  and  merits  of  Mr.  Justice  Story, 
as  a  writer  or  a  judge.  The  performance  of  that  duty,  with  which 
this  I  Jar  will  no  doubt  charge  itself,  must  be  deferred  to  another 
opportunity,  and  will  U>  committed  to  abler  hands.  But  in  the 
homage  paid  to  his  memory,  one  part  may  come  with  peculiar 


514  WEBSTER. 

propriety  and  emphasis  from  ourselves.  We  have  known  him 
in  private  life.  We  have  seen  him  descend  from  the  bench,  and 
mingle  in  our  friendly  circles.  We  have  known  his  manner  of 
life,  from  his  youth  up.  We  can  bear  witness  to  the  strict  up- 
rightness and  purity  of  his  character,  his  simplicity  and  unos- 
tentatious habits,  the  ease  and  affability  of  his  intercourse,  his 
remarkable  vivacity  amidst  severe  labours,  the  cheerful  and 
animating  tones  of  his  conversation,  and  his  fast  fidelity  to 
friends.  Some  of  us,  also,  can  testify  to  his  large  and  liberal 
charities,  not  ostentatious  or  casual,  but  systematic  and  silent, 
—  dispensed  almost  without  showing  the  hand,  and  falling  and 
distilling  comfort  and  happiness,  like  the  dews  of  heaven.  But 
we  can  testify,  also,  that  in  all  his  pursuits  and  employments, 
in  all  his  recreations,  in  all  his  commerce  with  the  world,  and  in 
his  intercourse  with  the  circle  of  his  friends,  the  predominance 
of  his  judicial  character  was  manifest.  He  never  forgot  the 
ermine  which  he  wore.  The  judge,  the  judge,  the  useful  and 
distinguished  judge,  was  the  great  picture  which  he  kept  c« Di- 
stantly before  his  eyes,  and  to  a  resemblance  of  which  all  his 
efforts,  all  his  thoughts,  all  his  life,  were  devoted. 

Mr.  Chief  Justice,  one  may  live  as  a  conqueror,  a  king,  or  a 
magistrate ;  but  he  must  die  as  a  man.  The  bed  of  death 
brings  every  human  being  to  his  pure  individuality  ;  to  the  in- 
tense contemplation  of  that  deepest  and  most  solemn  of  all 
relations, —  the  relation  between  the  creature  and  his  Creator. 
Here  it  is  that  fame  and  renown  cannot  assist  us  ;  that  all  ex- 
ternal things  must  fail  to  aid  us ;  that  even  friends,  affection, 
and  human  love  and  devotedness,  cannot  succour  us.  This  re- 
lation, the  true  foundation  of  all  duty,  a  relation  perceived  and 
felt  by  conscience,  and  confirmed  by  Revelation,  our  illustrious 
friend,  now  deceased,  always  acknowledged.  He  reverenced 
the  Scriptures  of  truth,  honoured  the  pure  morality  which  they 
teach,  and  clung  to  the  hopes  of  future  life  which  they  impart. 
He  beheld  enough  in  Nature,  in  himself,  and  in  all  that  can  be 
known  of  things  seen,  to  feel  assured  that  there  is  a  Supreme 
Power,  without  whose  providence  not  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the 
ground.  To  this  gracious  Being  he  trusted  himself  for  time 
and  for  eternity  ;  and  the  last  words  of  his  lips  ever  heard  by 
mortal  ears  were  a  fervent  supplication  to  his  Maker  to  take 
him  to  Himself. 


RELIGION   AS  AN   ELEMENT  OF   GREATNESS.  515 


RELIGION  AS  AN  ELEMENT  OF  GREATNESS.7 

POLITICAL  eminence  and  professional  fame  fade  away  and 
die  with  all  things  earthly.  Nothing  of  character  is  really  per- 
manent but  virtue  and  personal  worth.  These  remain.  What- 
ever of  excellence  is  wrought  into  the  soul  itself  belongs  to 
both  worlds.  Real  goodness  does  not  attach  itself  merely  to 
this  life  ;  it  points  to  another  world.  Political  or  professional 
eminence  cannot  last  for  ever ;  but  a  conscience  void  of  offence 
before  God  and  man  is  an  inheritance  for  eternity.  Religion, 
therefore,  is  a  necessary  and  indispensable  element  in  any  great 
human  character.  There  is  no  living  without  it.  Religion  is 
the  tie  that  connects  man  with  his  Creator,  and  holds  him  to 
His  throne.  If  that  tie  be  all  sundered,  all  broken,  he  floats 
away,  a  worthless  atom  in  the  Universe  ;  its  proper  attractions 
all  gone,  its  destiny  thwarted,  and  its  whole  future  nothing  but 
darkness,  desolation,  and  death.  A  man  with  no  sense  of  re- 
ligious duty  is  he  whom  the  Scriptures  describe,  in  such  terse 
but  terrific  language,  as  living  "without  God  in  the  world." 
Such  a  man  is  out  of  his  proper  being,  out  of  the  circle  of  all  his 
duties,  out  of  the  circle  of  all  his  happiness,  and  away,  far,  far 
away,  from  the  purpose  of  his  creation. 

A  mind  like  Mr.  Mason's,  active,  thoughtful,  penetrating,  se- 
date, could  not  but  meditate  deeply  on  the  condition  of  man 
below,  and  feel  its  responsibilities.  He  could  not  look  on  this 
mighty  system,  "this  universal  frame,  thus  wondrous  fair," 
without  feeling  that  it  was  created  and  upheld  by  an  Intelli- 
gence to  which  all  other  intelligences  must  be  responsible.  I  am 
bound  to  say,  that  in  the  course  of  my  life  I  never  met  with  an  in- 
dividual, in  any  profession  or  condition  of  life, who  always  spoke, 
and  always  thought,  with  such  awful  reverence  of  the  power 
and  presence  of  God.  No  irreverence,  no  lightness,  even  no  too 
familiar  allusion  to  God  or  His  attributes,  ever  escaped  his  lips. 
The  very  notion  of  a  Supreme  Being  was,  with  him,  made  up 
of  awe  and  solemnity.  It  filled  the  whole  of  his  great  mind 

7  The  lion.  Jeremiah  Mason,  one  of  the  greatest  lawyers  in  the  United  States, 
died  at  his  home  in  Boston,  on  the  14th  of  October,  1849,  having  reached  his 
eighty-first  year.  He  and  Webster  had  for  many  years  been  knit  together  in  a 
friendship  as  strong  and  as  pure  as  two  great  manly  hearts  are  capable  of.  On 
the  14th  of  November  following,  at  the  opening  of  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court, 
a  series  of  resolutions,  expressing  the  sense  of  the  Suffolk  Bar,  was  presented, 
and  Webster  gave,  at  considerable  length,  a  review  of  the  life  and  character  of 
lii.H  departed  friend.  I  here  reproduce  but  a  small  portion  of  that  eloquent  and 
affecting  discourse,— a  passage  of  which  no  more  need  be  said  than  that  it  is 
well  worthy  of  the  illustrious  speaker. 


516  WEBSTEK. 

with  the  strongest  emotions.  A  man  like  him,  with  all  his 
proper  sentiments  and  sensibilities  alive  in  him,  must,  in  this 
state  of  existence,  have  something  to  believe  and  something  to 
hope  for  ;  or  else,  as  life  is  advancing  to  its  close  and  parting, 
all  is  heart-sinking  and  oppression.  Depend  upon  it,  whatever 
may  be  the  mind  of  an  old  man,  old  age  is  only  really  happy 
when,  on  feeling  the  enjoyments  of  this  world  pass  away,  it 
begins  to  lay  a  stronger  hold  on  those  of  another. — Mr.  Mason's 
religious  sentiments  and  feelings  were  the  crowning  glories  of 
his  character. 


EACH  TO  INTERPRET  THE  LAW  FOR  HIMSELF. 

Ix  that  important  document  upon  which  it  seems  to  be  the 
President's  fate  to  stand  or  to  fall  before  the  American  people, 
the  veto  message,  he  holds  the  following  language:  "Each  pub- 
lic ollicer  who  takes  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution,  swears 
that  he  will  support  it  as  he  understands  it,  and  not  as  it  is  un- 
derstood by  others."  The  general  adoption  of  the  sentiments 
expressed  in  this  sentence  would  dissolve  our  government.  It 
would  raise  every  man's  private  opinions  into  a  standard  for  his 
own  conduct;  and  there  certainly  is,  there  can  be,  no  govern- 
ment, where  every  man  is  to  judge  for  himself  of  his  own  rights 
and  his  own  obligations.  "Where  every  one  is  his  own  arbiter, 
force,  and  not  law,  is  the  governing  power.  He  who  may  judge 
for  himself,  and  decide  for  himself,  must  execute  his  own  decis- 
ions ;  and  this  is  the  law  of  force.  I  confess  it  strikes  me  with 
astonishment,  that  so  wild,  so  disorganizing  a  sentiment  should 
be  uttered  by  a  President  of  the  United  States.  I  should  think 
it  must  have  escaped  from  its  author  through  want  of  reflec- 
tion, or  from  the  habit  of  little  reflection  on  such  subjects,  if  I 
could  suppose  it  possible  that,  on  a  question  exciting  so  much 
public  attention,  and  of  so  much  national  importance,  any  such 
extraordinary  doctrine  could  find  its  way,  but  by  inadver- 
tence, into  a  formal  and  solemn  public  act.  Standing  as  it 
does,  it  affirms  a  proposition  which  would  effectually  repeal  all 
constitutional  and  all  legal  obligations.  The  Constitution  de- 
clares that  every  public  officer,  in  the  State  governments  as  well 
as  in  the  general  government,  shall  take  an  oath  to  support  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  This  is  all.  "Would  it  not 
have  cast  an  air  of  ridicule  on  the  whole  provision,  if  the  Con- 
stitution had  gone  on  to  add  the  words,  "as  he  understands 
it"  ?  What  could  come  nearer  to  a  solemn  farce,  than  to  bind 
a  man  by  oath,  and  still  leave  him  to  be  his  own  interpreter  of 


EACH  TO   INTERPRET  THE  LAW  FOR  HIMSELF.        517 

his  own  obligation  ?  Those  who  are  to  execute  the  laws  have 
no  more  a  license  to  construe  them  for  themselves,  than  those 
whose  only  duty  is  to  obey  them.  Public  officers  are  bound  to 
support  the  Constitution ;  private  citizens  are  bound  to  obey 
it ;  and  there  is  no  more  indulgence  granted  to  the  public  offi- 
cer to  support  the  Constitution  only  as  he  understands  it,  than  to 
a  private  citizen  to  obey  it  only  as  he  understands  it ;  and  what 
is  true  of  the  Constitution,  in  this  respect,  is  equally  true  of 
any  law.  Laws  are  to  be  executed,  and  to  be  obeyed,  not  as  in- 
dividuals may  interpret  them,  but  according  to  public,  authori- 
tative interpretation  and  adjudication.  The  sentiment  of  the 
message  would  abrogate  the  obligation  of  the  whole  criminal 
code.  If  every  man  is  to  judge  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws  for  himself,  if  he  is  to  obey  and  support  them  only  as  he 
may  say  he  understands  them,  a  revolution,  I  think,  would 
take  place  in  the  administration  of  justice ;  and  discussions 
about  the  law  of  treason,  murder,  and  arson  should  be  ad- 
dressed, not  to  the  judicial  bench,  but  to  those  who  might  stand 
charged  with  such  offences.  The  object  of  discussion  should 
In-,  if  we  run  out  this  notion  to  its  natural  extent,  to  convince 
the  culprit  himself  how  he  ought  to  understand  the  law. 

How  is  it  possible  that  a  sentiment  so  wild  and  so  dangerous, 
so  encouraging  to  all  who  feel  a  desire  to  oppose  the  laws,  and 
to  impair  the  Constitution,  should  have  been  uttered  by  the 
President  of  the  United  States  at  this  eventful  and  critical  mo- 
ment? Are  we  not  threatened  with  dissolution  of  the  Union? 
Are  we  not  told  that  the  laws  of  the  government  shall  be 
openly  and  directly  resisted  ?  Is  not  the  whole  country  look- 
ing, with  the  utmost  anxiety,  to  what  may  be  the  result  of  these 
threatened  courses?  And  at  this  very  moment,  so  full  of  peril 
to  the  State,  the  chief  magistrate  puts  forth  opinions  and  senti- 
ments as  truly  subversive  of  all  government,  as  absolutely  in 
conflict  with  the  authority  of  the  Constitution,  as  the  wildest 
theories  of  nullification.  I  have  very  little  regard  for  the  law 
or  the  logic  of  nullification.  But  there  is  not  an  individual  in 
its  ranks,  capable  of  putting  two  ideas  together,  who,  if  you  will 
grant  him  the  principles  of  the  veto  message,  cannot  defend  all 
that  nullification  has  ever  threatened.8—  Speech  at  Worcester. 
Oct.,  i 

8  This  brk'f  but  most  wise  passage  moves  me  to  comment  a  little  on  what  I 
have  often  heard  maintained  as  a  settled  axiom  in  morals,  namely,  that  "  every 
man  is  the  ultimate  judge  of  his  own  duty."  As  all  moralists  agree  tliat  rights 
and  duties  go  together,  it  follows,  of  eonrse,  that  every  man  is  the  ultimate 
judge  of  hi^  own  rights;  that  is,  the  supreme  judge  in  hirf  own  case.  Now,  to 
men  from  being  judges  in  their  own  case,  is,  I  take  it,  the  main  purpose 
and  business  of  all  civil  government;  and  this  because  men  are  notoriously 


51 S  WEBSTER. 


IRREDEEMABLE  PAPER. 

I  AM  well  aware  that  bank  credit  may  be  abused.    I  know 

that  bank  paper  may  become  excessive  ;  that  depreciation  will 
1hen  follow  ;  and  that  the  evils,  the  losses,  and  the  frauds  con- 
sequent on  a  disordered  currency  fall  on  the  rich  and  th> 
together,  but  with  especial  weight  of  ruin  on  the  poor.  I  know 
that  the  system  of  bank  credit  must  always  rest  on  a  specie 
basis  and  that  it  constantly  needs  to  be  strictly  guarded  and 
properly  restrained  ;  audit  may  be  so  guarded  and  restrained. 
AVe  need  not  give  up  <nt>  good  which  belongs  to  it,  through  fear 
of  the  evils  which  may  follow  from  its  abuse.  We  have  the 
power  to  take  security  against  these  evils.  It  is  our  business 
as  statesmen,  to  adopt  that  security;  it  is  our  business,  not  to 
prostrate  or  attempt  to  prostrate  the  system,  but  to  use  those 
means  of  precaution,  restraint,  and  correction,  which  experi- 
ence has  sanctioned,  and  which  are  ready  at  our  hands. 

very  bad  judges  in  their  own  cn>e.  so  much  so,  that  human  society  cannot  pub- 
s;.-t  on  that  Icisis.  In  other  \vonts,  thi>  a.\u>iu  means  nothing  less  than  that 
every  man  i-  t»  be  a  sovereign  law  unto  himself,  and  i.s  to  do  ju.-t  as  lie  ha-  a 
mind  to;  or,  which  comes  to  the  same  thin.;,',  that  every  man  is  to  clothe  his  own 
judgment  with  Divine  authority.  What  is  this  but  rr.M.hing  all  obligation, 
duty,  law,  into  individual  will?  To  be  Mire,  con-cicnce  is  individual,  and  we 
all  ;:dm.t  the  supremacy  of  conscience  in  its  pioper  sphere.  IJut  (., 
grows  and  lives  only  in  the  recognition  ami  the  strength  of  an  exteinal  law: 
cutoff  thai  recognition,  and  conscience  must  .-non  die  out.  And  that,  ext  TIKI! 
law  is  n  matter  of  social  prescription,  not  of  individual  judgment  or  will.  Or, 
again,  conscience  infers  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong;  but  it  does  not  tell 
us  what  things  are  right  and  what  are  wrong:  it  ptippo>e<  the  existence  of  the 
moral  law,  but  does  not  teach  us  what  that  law  is.  To  authenticate  and  define 
that  law,  i.s  the  ollice  partly  of  Uevclation,  partly  of  the  collective  reason  and 
experience  of  mankind.  And  it  is  in  vain  that  you  undertake  torarry  the  au- 
thority of  Revelation  above  or bc\ond  the  authority  of  that  collective  reason  ar.d 
experience.  In  other  words,  God  speaks  to  us  as  authentically  and  as  impera- 
tively through  social  and  civil  institutions,  through  parents,  teachers,  and  rulers, 
as  in  Scripture.  And  conscience  binds  us  as  strongly  to  obey  the  rtiliiK.-- 
fonner  as  of  the  latter;  nor,  if  it  be  set  free  from  those,  can  it  p->- 
to  these.  Let  the  axiom  iu  question  be  thoroughly  reduced  to  practice,  and 
humanity  will  inevitably  be  carried  on  to  suicide  :  any  people  working  the 
principle  fairly  through  from  speculation  into  life  will  needs  die  of  sheer  law- 

-  ;  for  it  is  nothing  less  than  acting  "  as  if  a  man  were  author  of  : 
and  knew  no  other  kin."     If.  as  I  am  told,  this  doctrine  is  generally  held  and 
taught   by  the   clergy  of  New   England,  then   I   can  only  say,  (Jod   lu 
Kir.l.i-'.d  !  for,  unless  lie  specially  interpose,  habie.-  will  keep  growing  - 
and  divorces  more  frequent,  till  the  race  shall  have  run  it>elf  utterly  into  the 
ground.    Most  assuredly,  as  regards  the  social  and  relative  rights  and  duties, 
society  is  the  ultimate  judge;  and  for  the  individual  conscience  to  decl.; 
above  or  independent  of  social  and  civil  prescription,  is  literally  inhuman.— 
Sec,  on  the  subject,  a  passage  from  Burke,  pages  22S-*2:J1. 


IRREDEEMABLE  PAPER.  519 

It  would  be  to  our  everlasting  reproach,  it  would  be  placing  us 
below  the  general  level  of  the  intelligence  of  civilized  States,  to 
admit  that  we  cannot  contrive  means  to  enjoy  the  benefits  of 
bank  circulation,  and  of  avoiding,  at  the  same  time,  its  dangers. 
Indeed,  Sir,  no  contrivance  is  necessary.  It  is  contrivance,  and 
the  love  of  contrivance,  that  spoil  all.  We  are  destroying  our- 
selves by  a  remedy  which  no  evil  called  for.  We  are  ruining 
perfect  health  by  nostrums  and  quackery.  We  have  lived, 
hitherto,  under  a  well-constructed,  practical,  and  beneficial  sys- 
tem ;  a  system  not  surpassed  by  any  in  the  world  ;  and  it  seems 
to  me  to  be  presuming  largely,  largely  indeed,  on  the  credulity 
and  self-denial  of  the  people,  to  rush  with  such  sudden  and  im- 
petuous haste  into  new  schemes  and  new  theories,  to  overturn 
and  annihilate  all  that  we  have  so  long  found  useful. 

Our  system  has  hitherto  l>een  one  in  which  paper  lias  been 
circulating  on  the  strength  of  a  specie  basis  ;  that  is  to  say. 
when  every  bank  note  was  convertible  into  specie  at  the  will  of 
the  holder.  This  has  been  our  guard  against  excess.  While 
banks  are  bound  to  redeem  their  bills  by  paying  gold  and  silver 
on  demand,  and  are  at  all  times  able  to  do  this,  the  currency  is 
safe  and  convenient.  Such  a  currency  is  not  paper  money,  in 
the  odious  sense.  It  is  not  like  the  continental  paper  of  1  (evo- 
lutionary times  ;  it  is  not  like  the  worthless  bills  of  banks  which 
have  suspended  specie  payments.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the 
representative  of  gold  and  silver,  and  convertible  into  gold  and 
silver  on  demand,  and  therefore  answers  the  purposes  of  gold 
and  silver  ;  and,  so  long  as  its  credit  is  in  this  way  sustained,  it 
is  the  cheapest,  the  best,  and  the  most  convenient  circulating 
medium.  I  have  already  endeavoured  to  warn  the  country 
against  irredeemable  paper;  against  bank  paper,  when  bunks 
do  not  pay  specie  for  their  own  notes;  against  that  miserable, 
abominable,  and  fraudulent  policy  which  attempts  to  give  value 
to  any  paper,  of  any  bank,  one  single  moment  longer  than  such 
paper  is  redeemable  on  demand  in  gold  and  silver.  And  I 
wish  most  solemnly  and  earnestly  to  repeat  that  warning.  I 
see  danger  of  that  state  of  things  ahead.  I  see  imminent  dan- 
ger that  more  or  fewer  of  the  State  banks  will  stop  specie  pay- 
ments. The  late  measure  of  the  Secretary,0  and  the  infatuat  ion 
with  which  it  seems  to  be  supported,  tend  directly  and  strongly 
to  that  result.  Under  pretence,  then,  of  a  design  to  return  to  a 
currency  which  shall  be  all  specie,  we  are  likely  to  have  a  cur- 
n  !iry  in  which  there  shall  be  no  specie  at  all.  We  are  in  dan- 
ger of  being  overwhelmed  with  irredeemable  paper,— mere 

'.)    This  was  the  removal  of  the  deposits  by  Mr.  Taney,  then  Secretary  of  the 
-  ury .—  See  Sketch  of  Webster'*  Life,  page  331. 


530  WEBSTER. 

paper,  representing  not  gold  nor  silver ;  no,  Sir,  representing 
nothing  but  broken  promises,  bad  faith,  bankrupt  corporations, 
cheated  creditors,  and  a  ruined  people.  This,  I  fear,  may  be 
the  consequence,  already  alarmingly  near,  of  this  attempt  — 
unwise,  if  it  be  real,  and  grossly  fraudulent,  if  it  be  only  pre- 
tended—of establishing  an  exclusive  hard-money  currency  I  — 
Speech  on  the  Itenwcal  of  tlie  Deposits,  Feb.,  1834. 


THE  currency  of  the  country  is  at  all  times  a  most  important 
political  object.  A  sound  currency  is  an  essential  and  indispen- 
sable security  for  the  fruits  of  industry  and  honest  enterprise. 
Every  man  of  property  or  industry,  every  man  who  desires  to 
preserve  what  lie  honestly  possesses,  or  to  obtain  what  he  can 
honestly  earn,  has  a  direct  interest  in  maintaining  a  safe  circu- 
lating medium;  such  a  medium  as  shall  be  a  real  and  sub- 
stantial representative  of  property,  not  liable  to  vibrate  witli 
opinions,  not  subject  to  be  blown  up  or  blown  down  by  the 
breath  of  speculation,  but  made  stable  and  secure  by  its  imme- 
diate relation  to  that  which  the  whole  world  regards  as  of  a 
permanent  value.  A  disordered  currency  is  one  of  the  greatest 
of  political  evils.  It  undermines  the  virtues  necessary  for  the 
support  of  the  social  system,  and  encourages  propensities  de- 
structive of  its  happiness.  It  wars  against  industry,  frugality, 
and  economy;  and  it  fosters  the  evil  spirits  of  extravagance 
and  speculation.  Of  all  the  contrivances  for  cheating  the  la- 
bouring classes  of  mankind,  none  has  been  more  effectual  than 
that  which  deludes  them  with  paper  money.  This  is  the  most 
effectual  of  inventions  to  fertilize  the  rich  man's  field  by  the 
sweat  of  the  poor  man's  brow.  Ordinary  tyranny,  oppression, 
excessive  taxation,  these  bear  lightly  on  the  happiness  of  the 
mass  of  the  community,  compared  with  fraudulent  currencies, 
and  the  robberies  committed  by  depreciated  paper.  Our  own 
history  has  recorded  for  our  instruction  enough,  and  more  than 
enough,  of  the  demoralizing  tendency,  the  injustice,  and  the 
intolerable  oppression,  on  the  virtuous  and  well  disposed,  of  a 
degraded  paper  currency,  authorized  by  law,  or  in  any  way 
countenanced  by  government. 


BENEFITS  OF  THE  CREDIT  SYSTEM.  521 


BENEFITS   OF  THE   CEEDIT   SYSTEM. 

Six  months  ago  a  state  of  things  existed  highly  prosperous 
and  advantageous  to  the  country,  but  liable  to  be  injuriously 
affected  by  precisely  such  a  cause  as  has  now  been  put  into  op- 
eration upon  it.  Business  was  active  and  carried  to  a  great  ex- 
tent. Commercial  credit  was  expanded,  and  the  circulation 
of  money  was  large.  This  circulation,  being  of  paper,  of  course 
rested  on  credit ;  and  this  credit  was  founded  on  banking  capi- 
tal and  bank  deposits.  The  public  revenues,  from  the  time  of 
their  collection  to  the  time  of  their  disbursement,  were  in  the 
bank  and  its  branches,  and,  like  other  deposits,  contributed  to 
the  means  of  discount.  Between  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
and  the  State  banks  there  was  a  degree  of  watchfulness,  per- 
haps of  rivalry  ;  but  there  was  no  enmity,  no  hostility.  All 
moved  in  their  own  proper  spheres,  harmoniously  and  in  order. 

The  Secretary  disturbed  this  state  of  peace.  lie  broke  up  all 
the  harmony  of  the  system.  By  suddenly  withdrawing  all  tho 
public  moneys  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  he  forced 
that  bank  to  an  immediate  correspondent  curtailment  of  its 
loans  and  discounts.  It  was  obliged  to  strengthen  itself;  and 
the  State  banks,  taking  the  alarm,  were  obliged  to  strengthen 
ihrmselves  also  by  similar  measures;  so  that  the  amount  of 
credit  actually  existing,  and  on  which  men  were  doing  business, 
was  all  at  once  greatly  diminished.  Bank  accommodations  were 
withdrawn  ;  men  could  no  longer  fulfil  their  engagements  by 
the  customary  means ;  property  fell  in  value  ;  thousands  failed  ; 
many  thousands  more  maintained  their  individual  credit  by 
enormous  sacrifices  ;  and  all,  being  alarmed  for  the  future,  as 
w.-li  as  distressed  for  the  present,  forbore  from  new  transac- 
tions and  new  engagements.  Finding  enough  to  do  to  stand 
still,  they  do  not  attempt  to  go  forward.  This  deprives  the  in- 
dustrious and  labouring  classes  of  their  occupations,  and  brings 
want  and  misery  to  their  doors.  This,  Sir,  is  a  short  recital  of 
and  effect.  This  is  the  history  of  the  iirst  six  months  of 
the  "experiment."  l 

Mr.  President,  the  recent  measures  of  tho  Secretary,  and  the 
opinions  which  are  said  to  be  avowed  by  those  who  approve  and 
support  them,  threaten  a  wild  and  ruthless  attack  on  the  com- 
mercial credit  of  the  country,  that  most  delicate  and  at  the 
same  time  most  important  agent  in  producing  general  prosper- 

1  The  experiment  which  President  Jacksou  undertook  to  carry  through, 
upon  HIM  rmTriK-y  mid  Hie  financial  system  of  the  country.  Tho  President  waa 
Mont  to  <-|.cak  «.t  it  rather  oxultingly  as  "  my  experiment,"  See  Sketch  of  Web- 
tter't  Lij'e,  page  331. 


523  WEBSTER. 

ity.  Commercial  credit  is  the  creation  of  modern  times,  and  he- 
longs,  in  its  highr-st  perfection,  only  to  the  most  enlightened  and 
best-governed  nations.  In  the  primitive  ages  of  commerce 
article  is  exchanged  for  article,  without  the  use  of  money  or 
credit.  This  is  simple  barter.  But,  in  its  progress,  a  symbol  of 
property,  a  common  measure  of  value,  is  introduced,  to  facili- 
tate the  exchanges  of  property;  and  this  maybe  iron,  or  any 
other  article  fixed  by  law  or  by  consent,  but  has  generally  been 
gold  and  «ilv.'r.  This,  certainly,  is  a  great  advance  beyond  sim- 
ple barter,  but  no  greater  than  has  been  gained,  in  modern 
times,  by  proceeding  from  the  mere  use  of  money  to  the  use  of 
credit.  Credit  is  the  vital  air  of  the  sy>teni  of  modern  com- 
merce. It  has  done  more,  a  thousand  times,  to  enrich  nations, 
thai)  all  the  mines  of  all  the  world.  It  has  excited  labour,  stim- 
ulated manufactures,  pushed  commerce  over  every  sea,  and 
brought  every  nation,  every  kingdom,  and  every  small  tribe, 
among  the  races  of  men,  to  be  known  to  all  the  rest.  It  has 
raised  armies,  equipped  navies,  and,  triumphing  over  the  gross 
power  of  mere  numbers,  it  has  established  national  superiority 
on  the  foundation  of  intelligence,  wealth,  and  well-directed  in- 
dustry. Credit  is  to  money  what  money  is  to  articles  of  mer- 
chandise. As  hard  money  represents  property,  so  credit  repre- 
sents hard  money;  and  it  is  capable  of  supplying  the  pi 
money  so  completely,  that  there  are  writers  of  distinction,  e>pe- 
cially  of  the  Scotch  school,  who  insist  that  no  hard  money  is 
necessary  for  the  interests  of  commerce.  I  am  not  of  that 
opinion. 

I  hold  the  immediate  convertibility  of  bank-notes  into  specie 
to  be  na  indispensable  security  for  their  retaining  their  value; 
but,  consistently  with  this  security,  and  indeed  founded  upon 
it,  credit  becomes  the  great  agent  of  exchange.  It  is  allowed 
that  it  increases  consumption  by  anticipating  products  ;  and 
that  it  supplies  present  wants  out  of  future  means.  And  as  it 
circulates  commodities  without  the  actual  use  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver, it  not  only  saves  much  by  doing  away  with  the  constant 
transportation  of  the  precious  metals  from  place  to  place,  but 
accomplishes  exchanges  with  a  degree  of  despatch  and  punctu- 
ality not  otherwise  to  be  attained.  All  bills  of  exchange,  all 
notes  running  upon  time,  as  well  as  the  paper  circulation  of  the 
banks,  belong  to  the  system  of  commercial  credit.  They  aie 
parts  of  one  great  whole.  And,  Sir,  unless  we  are  to  reject  the 
lights  of  experience,  and  to  repudiate  the  benelits  which  other 
nations  enjoy,  and  which  we  ourselves  have  hitherto  enjoyed, 
we  should  protect  this  system  with  imceasing  watchfulness, 
taking  tare,  on  the  one  hand,  to  give  it  full  and  fair  play,  and, 
on  the  other,  to  guard  it  against  dangerous  excess.  We  shall 


BENEFITS   OF  THE  CREDIT   SYSTEM.  523 

show  ourselves   unskilful  and  unfaithful  statesmen,  if  we  do 
not  keep  clear  of  extremes  on  both  sides. 

It  is  very  true  that  commercial  credit,  and  the  system  of 
banking,  as  a  part  of  it,  does  furnish  a  substitute  for  capital. 
It  is  very  true  that  this  system  enables  men  to  do  business,  to 
some  extent,  on  borrowed  capital ;  and  those  who  wish  to  ruin 
all  who  make  use  of  borrowed  capital  act  wisely  to  that  end  by 
decrying  it.2 

This  commercial  credit,  Sir,  depends  on  wise  laws,  steadily 
administered.  Indeed,  the  best-governed  countries  are  always 
the  richest.  With  good  political  systems,  natural  disadvan- 
tages and  the  competition  of  all  the  world  may  be  defied. 
Without  such  systems,  climate,  soil,  position,  and  every  thing 
el>e,  may  favour  the  progress  of  wealth,  and  yet  nations  be 
poor.  What  but  bad  laws  and  bad  government  lias  retarded 
the  progress  of  commerce,  credit,  and  wealth  in  the  peninsula 
of  Spain  and  Portugal,  a  part  of  Europe  distinguished  for  its 
natural  advantages,  and  especially  suited  by  its  position  for  an 
extensive  commerce,  with  the  sea  on  three  sides  of  it,  ami  us 
many  good  harbours  as  all  the  rest  of  Europe?  The,  whole, 
history  <>i  commerce  shows  that  it  nourishes  or  fades  just  in 
proportion  as  property,  credit,  and  the  fruits  of  labour  are 
protected  by  free  and  just  political  systems.  ( 'redit  cannot  ex- 
ist under  arbitrary  and  rapacious  governments,  and  commerce, 
cannot  exist  without  credit.  Tripoli  and  Tunis  and  Algiers  arc 
countries,  above  all  others,  in  which  hard  money  is  indispen- 
sable ;  because,  under  such  governments,  nothing  is  valuable 
which  cannot  be  secreted  and  hoarded.  And  as  government 
ile  of  intelligence  and  liberty,  from  these  bar- 
barous despotisms  to  the  highest  rank  of  free  States,  its  pro- 
is  marked,  at  every  step,  by  a  higher  degree  of  security 
and  of  credit.  This  undeniable  truth  should  make  well- 
informed  men  ashamed  to  cry  out  against  banks  and  banking, 
us  being  aristocrat ical,  oppressive  to  the  poor,  or  partaking  of 
Hie  character  of  dangerous  monopoly.  Uanks  are  a  part  of  the 
great,  system  of  commercial  credit,  and  have  done  much,  under 
tiie  influence  of  good  government,  to  aid  and  elevate  that 
credit.  What  is  their  history?  Where  down  first  lind  them? 
Do  they  make  their  first  appearance  in  despotic  governments, 
und  show  themselves  as  inventions  of  power  to  o]>i» 
people?  The  first  bank  was  that  of  Venice;  the  second,  that 
noa.  From  the  example  of  these  republics,  they  were 
next  established  in  Holland  and  the  free  city  of  Hamburg. 

2  "They  who  trade  on  borrowed  capital  ought  to  break,"  was  a  saying  as- 
rrilwii  to  J'rcHidcnt,  .TarkKon,  and  was  much  commented  on  at  the  time  as  a 
strange  thing  to  be  uttered  by  a  prince  of  the  Democracy. 


524  WEBSTER. 

England  followed  these  examples,  but  not  until  she  had  been 
delivered  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Stuarts,  by  the  revolution  of 
1688.  It  was  William  the  Deliverer,  and  not  William  the  Con- 
queror, that  established  the  Bank  of  England.  Who  supposes 
that  a  Bank  of  England  could  have  existed  in  the  times  of 
Empson  and  Dudley  ?  3  Who  supposes  that  it  could  have  lived 
under  those  ministers  of  Charles  the  Second  who  shut  up  the 
exchequer,  or  that  its  vaults  could  have  been  secure  against 
the  arbitrary  power  of  the  brother  and  successor  of  that 
monarch  ? 

The  history  of  banks  belongs  to  the  history  of  commerce  and 
the  general  history  of  liberty.  It  belongs  to  the  history  of 
those  causes  which,  in  a  long  course  of  years,  raised  the  middle 
and  lower  orders  of  society  to  a  state  of  intelligence  aud  prop- 
erty, in  spite  of  the  iron  sway  of  the  feudal  system.  In  what 
instance  have  they  endangered  liberty  or  overcome  the  laws  ? 
Their  very  existence,  on  the  contrary,  depends  on  the  security 
and  the  rule  both  of  liberty  and  law.  Why,  Sir,  have  we  not 
been  taught,  in  our  earliest  reading,  that  to  the  birth  of  a 
commercial  spirit,  to  associations  for  trade,  to  the  guilds  and 
companies  formed  in  the  towns,  we  are  to  look  for  the  first 
emergence  of  liberty  from  die  darkness  of  the  Middle  Ages;  for 
the  first  faint  blush  of  that  morning  which  has  grown  brighter 
and  brighter  till  the  perfect  day  has  come?  And  it  is  just  as 
reasonable  to  say  that  bills  of  exchange  are  dangerous  to  liberty, 
that  promissory  notes  are  dangerous  to  liberty,  that  the  power 
of  regulating  the  coin  is  dangerous  to  liberty,  as  that  credit, 
and  banking,  as  a  part  of  credit;  are  dangerous  to  liberty. 

Sir,  I  hardly  know  a  writer  on  these  subjects  who  has  not  se- 
lected the  United  States  as  an  eminent  and  striking  instance,  to 
show  the  advantages  of  well-established  credit,  and  the  benefit 
of  its  expansion,  to  a  degree  not  incompatible  with  safety,  by  a 
paper  circulation.  Or,  if  they  do  not  mention  the  United 
States,  they  describe  just  such  a  country  ;  that  is  to  say,  a  new 
and  fast-growing  country.  Hitherto,  it  must  be  confessed,  our 
success  has  been  great.  With  some  breaks  and  intervals,  our 
progress  has  been  rapid,  because  our  system  has  been  good. 
We  have  preserved  and  fostered  credit,  till  all  have  become 

3  King  Henry  the  Seventh,  near  the  close  of  his  life,  grew  frightfully  avari- 
cious and  rapacious,  and  Enipsou  and  Dudley,  as  Barons  of  the  Exchequer, 
were  the  agents  of  his  avarice  aud  rapacity.  Jiotli  wore  lawyers,  of  inventive 
heads  and  unfeeling  hearts,  who,  says  Lingard,  "  despoiled  the  subject  to  fill 
the  King's  coffers,  and  despoiled  the  King  to  enrich  themselves."  The  measures 
used  by  them  were  extortionate  and  oppressive  in  the  List  degree;  and  the  men 
became  so  odious  to  the  people,  that,  early  in  the  next  reign,  it  was  found  neces- 
sary to  put  them  to  death. 


BENEFITS   OF  THE  CREDIT  SYSTEM.  525 

interested  in  its  further  continuance  and  preservation.  It  has 
run  deep  and  wide  into  our  whole  system  of  social  life.  Every 
man  feels  the  vibration,  when  a  blow  is  struck  upon  it.  And 
this  is  the  reason  why  nobody  has  escaped  the  influence  of 
the  Secretary's  recent  measure.  While  credit  is  delicate,  sensi- 
tive, easily  wounded,  and  more  easily  alarmed,  it  is  also  infi- 
nitely ramified,  diversified,  extending  everywhere,  and  touching 
every  thing. 

There  never  was  a  moment  in  which  so  many  individuals  felt 
their  own  private  interest  to  be  directly  affected  by  what  has 
been  done,  and  what  is  to  be  done.  There  never  was  a  mo- 
ment, therefore,  in  which  so  many  straining  eyes  were  turned 
towards  Congress.  It  is  felt,  by  every  one,  that  this  is  a  case  in 
which  the  acts  of  the  government  come  directly  home  to  him, 
and  produce  either  good  or  evil,  every  hour,  upon  his  personal 
and  private  condition.  And  how  is  the  public  expectation 
met  ?  How  is  this  intense,  this  agonized  expectation  answered  ? 
I  am  grieved  to  say,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  it  is  answered  by 
declamation  against  the  bank  as  a  monster,  by  loud  cries 
against  a  moneyed  aristocracy,  by  pretended  zeal  for  a  hard- 
money  system,  and  by  professions  of  favour  and  regard  to  the 
poor. 

The  poor  I  We  are  waging  war  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  I 
We  slay  that  monster,  the  bank,  that  we  may  defeat  the  unjust 
purposes  of  the  rich,  and  elevate  and  protect  the  poor  I  And 
what  is  the  effect  of  all  this?  What  happens  to  the  poor,  and 
ull  the  middling  classes,  in  consequence  of  this  warfare? 
Where  are  they?  Are  they  well  fed,  well  clothed,  well  em- 
ployed, independent,  happy,  and  grateful  ?  They  are  all'  at  the 
feet  of  the  capitalists  ;  they  are  in  the  jaws  of  usury.  If  there 
bo  hearts  of  stone  in  human  bosoms,  they  are  at  the  mercy  of 
those  who  have  such  hearts.  Look  to  the  rates  of  interest, 
mounting  to  twenty,  thirty,  fifty  per  cent.  Sir,  this  measure  of 
government  has  transferred  millions  upon  millions  of  hard- 
earned  property,  in  the  form  of  extra  interest,  from  the  indus- 
trious classes  to  the  capitalists,  from  the  poor  to  the  rich.  And 
this  is  called  putting  down  a  moneyed  aristocracy  I  Sir,  there 
are  thousands  of  families  who  have  diminished,  not  their  luxu- 
ries, not  their  amusements,  but  their  meat  and  their  bread,  that 
they  might  be  able  to  save  their  credit  by  paying  enormous  in- 
terest. And  there  are  other  thousands,  who,  having  lost  their 
employment,  have  lost  every  thing,  and  who  yet  hear,  amidst 
the  bitterness  of  their  anguish,  that  the  great  motive  of  govern- 
ment  is  kindness  to  the  poor  1  —  Speech  for  continuing  the  Bank 
Charter,  Jfarc/t,  1834. 


526  WEBSTER. 


ABUSE  OF  EXECUTIVE  PATRONAGE.* 

THE  extent  of  the  patronage  springing  from  the  power  of  ap- 
pointment and  removal  is  so  great,  that  it  brings  a  dangerous 
mass  of  private  and  personal  interest  into  operation  in  all  great 
public  elections  and  public  question*.  This  is  a  mischief  which 
has  reached,  already,  an  alarming  height.  The  principle  of  re- 
publican governments,  we  are  taught,  is  public  virtue  ;  and 
whatever  tends  either  to  corrupt  this  principle,  to  debase  it,  or 
to  weaken  its  force,  tends,  in  the  same  degree,  to  the  final  over- 
throw of  such  governments.  Our  representative  >y>tems  sup- 
pose that,  in  exercising  the  high  right  <>f  suffrage,  the  greatest 
of  all  political  rights,  and  in  forming  opinions  on  great  public 
measures,  men  will  act  conscientiously,  under  the  influence  of 
public  principle  and  patriotic  duty;  and  that,  in  supporting  or 
opposing  men  or  measures,  there  will  be  a  general  prevalence 
of  honest,  intelligent  judgment  and  manly  independence. 
These  presumptions  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  hope  of  main- 
taining governments  entirely  popular.  Whenever  personal,  in- 
dividual, or  selfish  motives  influence  the  conduct  of  individuals 
on  public  questions,  they  affect  the  safety  of  the  whole  system. 
When  these1  motives  run  deep  and  wide,  and  come  in  .serious 
conflict  with  higher,  purer,  and  more  patriotic  purposes,  they 
greatly  endanger  that  system  ;  and  all  will  admit  that,  if  they 
become  general  and  overwhelming,  so  that  all  public  princi- 
ple is  lost  sight  of,  and  every  election  becomes  a  mere  scram- 
ble for  office,  the  system  inevitably  must  fall.  Every  wise 
man,  in  and  out  of  government,  will  endeavour,  therefore,  to 
promote  the  ascendency  of  public  virtue  and  public  principle, 
and  to  restrain,  as  far  as  practicable,  in  the  actual  operation  of 
our  institutions,  the  influence  of  selfish  and  private  inter' 

I  concur  with  those  who  think  that,  looking  to  the  present, 
and  looking  also  to  the  future,  and  regarding  all  the  probabil- 
ities that  await  us  in  reference  to  the  character  and  qualities  oi' 
those  who  may  fill  the  executive  chair,  it  is  important  to  the 
stability  of  government  and  the  welfare  of  the  people,  that 
there  should  be  a  check  to  the  progress  of  official  influence  and 
patronage.  The  unlimited  power  to  grant  office,  and  to  take  it 
away,  gives  a  command  over  the  hopes  and  fears  of  a  vast  mul- 
titude of  men.  It  is  generally  true,  that  he  who  controls  an- 
other man's  means  of  living  controls  his  will.  Where  there  are 
favours  to  be  granted,  there  are  usually  enough  to  solicit  for 
them  ;  and  when  favours  once  granted  may  be  withdrawn  at 

4    See  the  piece  headed  "The  Spoils  to  the  Victors,"  page  402. 


PHILANTHROPIC  LOVE  OF  POWER.  527 

pleasure,  there  is  ordinarily  little  security  for  personal  inde- 
pendence of  character.  The  power  of  giving  oflice  thus  affects 
the  fears  of  all  who  are  in,  and  (he  hopes  of  all  who  are  out. 
Those  who  are  out  endeavour  to  distinguish  themselves  by  act- 
ive political  friendship,  by  warm  personal  devotion,  by  chim- 
orous  support  of  men  in  whose  hands  is  the  power  of  reward; 
while  those  who  are  in  ordinarily  take  care  that  others  shall  not 
surpass  them  in  such  qualities  or  such  conduct  as  is  most  likely 
to  secure  favour.  They  resolve  not  to  be  outdone  in  any  of  the 
works  of  partisanship.  The  consequence  of  all  this  is  obvious. 
A  competition  ensues,  not  of  patriotic  labours;  not  of  rough 
and  severe  toils  for  the  public  good;  not  of  manliness,  inde- 
pendence, and  public  spirit ;  but  of  complaisance,  of  indiscrim- 
inate support  of  executive  measures,  of  pliant  subserviency 
and  gross  adulation.  All  throng  and  rush  together  to  the  altar 
of  man-worship;  and  there  they  offer  sacrifices,  and  pour  out 
libations,  till  the  thick  fumes  of  their  incense;  turn  their  own 
head  -,  and  turn,  also,  the  head  of  him  who  is  the  object  of  their 
idolatry. 

The  existence  of  parties  in  popular  governments  is  not  to  be 
avoided  ;  and  if  they  are  formed  on  constitutional  questions,  or 
in  regard  to  great  measures  of  public  policy,  and  do  not  run  to 
ive  length,  it  may  be  admitted  that,  on  the  whole,  they 
do  no  great  harm.  But  the  patronage  of  office,  the  power  of 
bestowing  place  and  emoluments,  creates  parties,  not  upon  any 
principle  or  any  measure,  but  upon  the  single  ground  of  per- 
sonal interest.  Under  the  direct  influence  of  this  motive,  they 
form  round  a  leader,  and  they  go  for  "the  spoils  of  victory." 
And  if  the  party  chieftain  becomes  the  national  chieftain,  he  is 
still  but  too  apt  to  consider  all  who  have  opposed  him  as  ene- 
mies to  be  punished,  and  all  who  have  supported  him  as  friends 
to  be  rewarded.  Blind  devotion  to  party,  and  to  the  head  of  a 
party,  thus  lakes  the  place  of  the  sentiments  of  generous  pat- 
riotism and  a  high  and  exalted  sense  of  public  duty. — Speech  on 
the  ApjjuintiiKj  and  Itemoving  Power,  Feb.,  1835. 


PHILANTHROPIC  LOVE  OF  POWER. 


the  power  of  the  executive  has  increased,  is  in- 

creasing, and  ought,  now  to  be  brought  back  within  its  ancient 
constitutional  limits.6    I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  motives 

5    This  is  a  paraphrase  of  a  famous  resolution  moved  by  Mr.  Dunning  in  the 
House  of  Commons.    See  page  130,  note  3. 


528  WEBSTER. 

that  have  led  to  those  acts  which  I  believe  to  have  transcended 
the  boundaries  of  the  Constitution.  Good  motives  may  always 
be  assumed,  as  bad  motives  may  always  be  imputed.  Good  in- 
tentions will  always  be  pleaded  for  every  assumption  of  power  ; 
but  they  cannot  justify  it,  even  if  we  were  sure  that  they  ex- 
isted. It  is  hardly  too  strong  to  say,  that  the  Constitution  was 
made,  to  guard  the  people  against  the  dangers  of  good  inten- 
tions, real  or  pretended.  When  bad  intentions  are  boldly 
avowed,  the  people  will  promptly  take  care  of  themselves.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  will  always  be  asked  why  they  should  re- 
sist or  question  that  exercise  of  power  which  is  so  fair  in  its 
object,  so  plausible  and  patriotic  in  appearance,  and  which  has 
the  public  good  alone  confessedly  in  view.  Human  beings,  wo 
may  be  assured,  will  generally  exercise  power  when  they  can 
get  it;  and  they  will  exercise  it  most  undoubtedly,  in  popular 
governments,  under  pretences  of  public  safety  or  high  public 
interest.  It  may  be  very  possible  that  good  intentions  do  really 
sometimes  exist  when  constitutional  restraints  are  disregarded. 
There  are  men,  in  all  ages,  who  mean  to  exercise  power  use- 
fully ;  but  they  mean  to  exercise  it.  They  mean  to  govern 
well ;  but  they  mean  to  govern.  They  promise  to  be  kind  mas- 
ters ;  but  they  mean  to  be  masters.  They  think  there  need  be 
but  little  restraint  upon  themselves.  Their  notion  of  the  pub- 
lic interest  is  apt  to  be  quite  closely  connected  with  their  own 
exercise  of  authority.  They  may  not,  indeed,  always  under- 
stand their  own  motives.  The  love  of  power  may  sink  too  deep 
in  their  own  hearts  even  for  their  own  scrutiny,  and  may  pass 
with  themselves  for  mere  patriotism  and  benevolence. 

A  character  has  been  drawn  of  a  very  eminent  citizen  of 
Massachusetts,  of  the  last  age,  which,  though  I  think  it  does 
not  entirely  belong  to  him,  yet  very  well  describes  a  certain 
class  of  public  men.  It  was  said  of  this  distinguished  son  of 
Massachusetts,  that  in  matters  of  politics  and  government  he 
cherished  the  most  kind  and  benevolent  feelings  towards  the 
whole  Earth.  He  earnestly  desired  to  see  all  nations  well 
governed  :  and  to  bring  about  this  happy  result,  he  wished  that 
the  United  States  might  govern  all  the  rest  of  the  world  ;  that 
Massachusetts  might  govern  the  United  States;  that  JJoston 
might  govern  Massachusetts  ;  and  as  for  himself,  his  own  hum- 
ble ambition  would  be  satisfied  by  governing  the  little  town  of 
Boston.—  Speech  at  Xiblo's  Saloon,  New  York,  March  15,  1837. 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   DISUXIOST.  529 


TIIE  SPIRIT  OF  DISUNION.6 

THE  spirit  of  union  is  particularly  liable  to  temptation  and 
seduction  in  moments  of  peace  and  prosperity.  In  war,  this 
spirit  is  strengthened  by  a  sense  of  common  danger,  and  by  a 
thousand  recollections  of  ancient  efforts  and  ancient  glory  in  a 
common  cause.  But  in  the  calms  of  a  long  peace,  and  in  the 
absence  of  all  apparent  causes  of  alarm,  things  near  gain  the 
ascendency  over  things  remote.  Local  interests  and  feelings 
overshadow  national  sentiments.  Our  attention,  our  regard, 
and  our  attachment  are  every  moment  solicited  to  what  touches 
us  closest,  and  we  feel  less  and  less  the  attraction  of  a  distant 
orb.  Such  tendencies  we  are  bound  by  true  patriotism  and  by 
our  love  of  union  to  resist.  This  is  our  duty  ;  and  the  moment, 
in  my  judgment,  has  arrived,  when  that  duty  should  be  per- 
formed. We  hear,  every  day,  sentiments  and  arguments  which 
would  become  a  meeting  of  envoys,  employed  by  separate  gov- 
ernments, more  than  they  become  the  common  legislature  of  a 
united  country.  Constant  appeals  are  made  to  local  interests, 
to  geographical  distinctions,  and  to  the  policy  and  pride  of  par- 
ticular State*.  It  would  sometimes  appear  as  if  it  were  a  set- 
tled purpose  to  convince  the  people  that  our  Union  is  nothing 

6  The  following  piece  is  the  conclusion  of  Webster's  second  speech  on  the 
Sub-Treasury,  delivered  March  12, 1838.  Calhoun,  after  a  concurrence  of  several 
years  with  Webster  in  opposing  the  financial  policy  of  the  government,  had  un- 
expectedly espoused  the  Sub-Treasury  scheme,  partly  as  a  means  of  uniting  the 
South  against  the  North.  In  the  course  of  the  speech  aforesaid,  Webster  pursues 
Calhoun  in  a  strain  of  rather  caustic  though  good-humoured  satire.  This  drew 
from  Calhoun  a  most  elaborate  and  searching  review  of  Webster's  political 
course.  I  have  elsewhere  remarked  that  Webster  had  an  intense  aversion  to 
1'nlitieal  metaphysics.  Herein  he  differed  in  toto  from  Calhoun,  who,  it  seems 
to  me,  was  rather  a  great  political  metaphysician  than  a  statesman,  in  the  right 
.sense  of  the  term.  I  must  add  that,  all  through  his  Congressional  life,  Webster 
stood  on  terms  of  cordial  friendliness  with  Calhoun.  The  two  men  had  indeed 
a  profound  re.-pect  for  each  other.  Webster  admired  the  genius  of  Calhoun,  and 
honoured  him  for  his  high  personal  worth.  Though  they  dealt  many  a  hard 
!il<.\\  upon  each  other  in  the  Senate,  each  seemed  always  the  more  drawn  to  the 
other  for  the  perfect  manliness  and  dignity  with  which  the  "hard  pounding" 
was  done.  IJut  Webster  never  would  go  along  at  all  with  the  noble  Southerner 
•  speculative  intricacies  where  men  "  llnd  no  end,  in  wandering  mazes 
i<»t."  In  reply  to  Calhoun's  searching  review  aforesaid,  Webster  made  another 
speech,  on  the  ±2d  of  March.  In  this  speech,  after  referring  to  certain  questions 
wherein  Calhoun  had  quite  shitted  off  from  his  original  ground,  he  has  the  fol- 
lowing: "The  honourable  member  now  takes  the.se  questions  with  him  into  the 
upper  heights  of  metaphysics,  into  the  region  of  those  refinements  and  subtile 
argument.*  which  he  rejected  with  BO  much  decision  in  1817.  He  quits  his  old 
ground  of  common  sense,  experience,  and  the  general  understanding  of  the 
country,  for  a  flight  among  theories  and  ethereal  abstractions." — See  Sketch  of 
Webater'a  Life,  page  333. 


530  WEBSTER. 

but  a  jumble  of  different  and  discordant  interests,  which  must, 
ere  long,  be  all  resolved  into  their  original  state  of  separate  ex- 
istence ;  as  if.  then-fore,  it  was  of  no  great  value  while  it  should 
la<t,  and  was  not  likely  to  last  long.  The  process  of  disin- 
tegration begins  by  urging  as  a  fact  the  existence  of  different 
interests. 

Sir,  is  not  the  end  to  which  all  this  leads  us  obvious?  Who 
does  not  see  that,  if  convictions  of  this  kind  take  possession  of 
the  public  mind,  our  Union  can  lien-after  lie  nothing,  while  it 
remains,  but  a  connection  without  harmony  :  a  bond  without 
affection  ;  a  theatre  for  the  angry  contests  of  local  feelings, 
local  objects,  and  local  jealousies?  Kven  while  it  continues  to 
exist  in  name,  it  may  by  these  means  become  nothing  but  the 
mere  form  of  a  united  government.  My  children,  and  the  chil- 
dren of  those  who  sit  armim!  me,  may  nm-t,  perhaps,  in  this 
chamber,  in  the  next  gem-ration  ;  but  if  tendencies  now  but  too 
obvious  be  not  cheeked,  they  will  meet  as  grangers  and  aliens. 
They  will  feel  no  sense  of  common  interot  or  common  coun- 
try; they  will  cherish  no  common  object  of  patriotic  lo\ 
the  same  Saxon  language  shall  fall  from  their  lips,  it  may  be 
the  chief  proof  that  they  belong  to  the  same  nation.  Its  vital 
principle  exhausted  and  gone,  its  power  of  doing  good  termi- 
nated, the  Union  itself,  become  productive  only  of  strife  and 
contention,  must  ultimately  fall,  dishonoured,  and  unlamented. 

The  honourable  member  from  South  Carolina  himself  habit- 
ually indulges  in  charges  of  usurpation  and  oppression  against 
the  government  of  his  country.  lie  daily  denounces  its  impor- 
tant measures,  in  the  language  in  which  our  Revolutionary 
fathers  spoke  of  the  oppressions  of  the  mother  country.  Not 
merely  against  executive  usurpation,  either  real  or  sup; 
does  he  utter  these  sentiments;  but  against  laws  of  Con 
laws  passed  by  large  majorities,  laws  sanctioned  for  a  course  of 
years  by  the  people.  These  laws  he  proclaims,  every  hour,  to 
be  but  a  series  of  acts  of  oppression.  lie  speaks  of  them  a>  if 
it  were  an  admitted  fact  that  such  is  their  true  character.  This 
is  the  language  he  utters,  these  are  the  sentiments  he  ex- 
presses, to  the  rising  generation  around  him.  Are  they  senti- 
ments and  language  which  are  likely  to  inspire  our  children 
with  the  love  of  union,  to  enlarge  their  patriotism,  or  to  teach 
them,  and  to  make  them  feel,  that  their  destiny  has  made  them 
common  citizens  of  one  great  and  glorious  republic-?  A  princi- 
pal object  in  his  late  political  movements,  the  gentleman  him- 
self tells  us,  was  to  unite  ih(.  entire  Xoutlt  ;  and  against  whom,  or 
against  what,  does  he  wish  to  unite  the  entire  South?  Is  not 
this  the  very  essence  of  local  feeling  and  local  regard?  Is  it 
not  the  acknowledgment  of  a  wish  and  object  to  create  political 


THE  SPIRIT  OP  DISUNION.  531 

strength  by  uniting  political  opinions  geographically?  While 
the  gentleman  thus  wishes  to  unite  the  entire  South,  I  pray  to 
know,  Sir,  if  he  expects  me  to  turn  toward  the  polar  star,  and, 
acting  on  the  same  principle,  to  utter  the  cry  of  Rally  !  to  the 
whole  North?  Heaven  forbid!  To  the  day  of  my  death, 
neither  he  nor  others  shall  hear  such  a  cry  from  me. 

Finally,  the  honourable  member  declares  that  he  shall  now 
march  off-  under  the  banner  of  State  rights.  March  off  from 
whom?  March  off  from  what?  We  have  been  contending  for 
great  principles.  We  have  been  struggling  to  maintain  the  lib- 
erty and  to  restore  the  prosperity  of  the  country ;  we  have 
made  these  struggles  here,  in  the  national  councils,  with  the 
old  Hag,  the  true  American  flag, — the  Eagle,  and  the  Stars  and 
Stripes,— waving  over  the  chamber  in  which  we  sit.  He  tells 
us,  however,  that  he  marches  off  under  the  State-rights  banner ! 

Let  him  go.  I  remain.  I  am  where  I  ever  have  been,  and 
ever  mean  to  be.  Here,  standing  on  the  platform  of  the  gen- 
eral Constitution,  a  platform  broad  enough  and  firm  enough  to 
uphold  every  interest  of  the  whole  country,  I  shall  still  be 
found.  Intrusted  with  some  part  in  the  administration  of  that 
Constitution,  1  intend  to  act  in  its  spirit,  and  in  the  spirit  of 
u  ho  framed  it.  Yes,  Sir,  I  would  act  as  if  our  fathers, 
who  formed  it  for  us,  and  who  bequeathed  it  to  us,  were  looking 
on  me;  as  if  I  could  see  their  venerable  forms  bending  down 
to  behold  us  from  the  abodes  above.  1  would  act,  too,  as  if  the 
•  !'  posterity  were  gazing  on  me. 

Standing  thus,  as  in  the  full  gaze  of  our  ancestors  and  our 
ity,  having  received  this  inheritance  from  the  former,  to 
emitted  to  the  latter,  and  feeling  that,  if  I  am  born  for 
any  good  in  my  day  and  generation,  it  is  for  the  good  of  the 
wholo  country,  no  local  policy  or  local  feeling,  no  temporary 
impulse,  shall  induce  me  to  yield  my  foothold  on  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Union.  I  move  off  under  no  banner  not  known  to 
the  whole  American  people,  and  to  their  Constitution  and  laws. 
Xn,  sir;  these  walls,  these  columns  "shall  fly  from  their  firm 
•  -on  as  J." 

I  came  into  public  life,  Sir,  in  the  service  of  the  United 
.  On  that  broad  altar  my  earliest  and  all  my  public  vows 
have  been  made.  I  propose;  to  serve  no  other  master.  So  far 
as  depends  on  any  agency  of  mine,  they  shall  continue  united 
;  united  in  interest,  and  in  affection  ;  united  in  every 
thing  in  regard  to  which  the  Constitution  has  decreed  their 
union  ;  united  in  war,  for  the  common  defence,  the  common  re- 
nown, and  the  common  glory;  and  united,  compacted,  knit 
{irmly  together  in  peace,  for  the  common  prosperity  and  happi- 
ness of  ourselves  and  our  children. 


532  *  WEBSTER. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  NAVY. 

THE  gentleman  says,  and  says  truly,  that  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  war  the  navy  was  unpopular.  It  was  unpopular 
with  his  friends,  who  then  controlled  the  politics  of  the  coun- 
try. But  he  says  he  differed  with  his  friends:  in  this  respect  he 
resisted  party  influence  and  party  connection,  and  was  the 
friend  and  advocate  of  the  navy.  Sir,  I  commend  him  for  it. 
He  showed  his  wisdom.  That  gallant  little  navy  soon  fought 
itself  into  favour,  and  no  man  who  had  placed  reliance  on  it 
was  disappointed. 

I  do  not  know  when  my  opinion  of  the  importance  of  a  naval 
force  to  the  United  States  had  its  origin.  1  can  give  no  date  to 
my  present  sentiments  on  this  subject,  because  I  never  enter- 
tained different  sentiments.  I  remember,  Sir,  that  immediately 
after  coming  into  my  profession,  at  a  period  when  the  navy  was 
most  unpopular,  when  it  was  called  by  all  sorts  of  hard  names 
and  designated  by  many  coarse  epithets,  on  one  of  those  occa- 
sions on  which  young  men  address  their  neighbours,  I  ventured 
to  put  forth  a  boy's  hand  in  defence  of  the  navy.  I  insisted  on 
its  importance,  its  adaptation  to  our  circumstances  and  to  our 
national  character,  and  its  indispensable  necessity,  if  we  in- 
tended to  maintain  and  extend  our  commerce.  These  opinions 
and  sentiments  I  brought  into  Congress  ;  and  the  first  time  in 
which  I  presumed  to  speak  on  the  topics  of  the  day,  I  attempted 
to  urge  on  the  House  a  greater  attention  to  the  naval  service. 
There  were  divers  modes  of  prosecuting  the  war.  On  these 
modes,  or  on  the  degree  of  attention  and  expense  which  should 
be  bestowed  on  each,  different  men  held  different  opinions.  L 
confess  I  looked  with  most  hope  to  the  results  of  naval  war- 
fare, and  therefore  I  invoked  government  to  invigorate  and 
strengthen  that  arm  of  the  national  defence.  I  invoked  it  to 
seek  its  enemy  upon  the  seas,  to  go  where  every  auspicious  in- 
dication pointed,  and  where  the  whole  heart  and  soul  of  the 
country  would  go  with  it. 

Sir,  we  were  at  war  with  the  greatest  maritime  power  on 
Earth.  England  had  gained  an  ascendency  on  the  seas  over  all 
the  combined  powers  of  Europe.  She  had  been  at  war  twenty 
years.  She  had  tried  her  fortunes  on  the  Continent,  but  gener- 
ally with  no  success.  At  one  time  the  whole  Continent  had 
been  closed  against  her.  A  long  line  of  armed  exterior,  an  un- 
broken hostile  array  frowned  upon  her  from  the  Gulf  of  Arch- 
angel,  round  the  promontory  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  to  the 
extreme  point  of  Italy.  There  was  not  a  port  which  an  English 
ship  could  enter.  Everywhere  on  the  land  the  genius  of  her 


THE  LOO  CABIN-.  533 

great  enemy  had  triumphed.  He  hs$  defeated  armies,  crushed 
coalitions,  and  overturned  thrones/;  frut,  like  the  fabled  giant; 
he  was  unconquerable  only  while  lie  touched  the  land.  On  the 
ocean  he  was  powerless.  That  ffeld  of  fame  was  his  adver- 
-^sary's,  and  her  meteor  flag  was  streaming  in  triumph  over  its 
wfrote^extent. 

To  her  maritime  ascendency  England  owed  every  thing,  and 
we  were  now  at  war  ;wrth  her.  /One  of  the  most  charming  of 
her  poets  had  said  of  her,  "^ter- march  is  on  the  mountain 
wave,  her  home  is  Ion  the  dee\p."  Now,  Sir,  since  we  were  at 
war  with  her,  I  wasj  for  intercepting  this  march  ;  I  was  for  call- 
ing upon  her,  and  paying  our  respects  to  her,  at  home  ;  I  was 
for  giving  her  to  know  that  we,  too,  had  a  right  of  way  over  the 
seas,  and  that  our  marine  officers  and  our  sailors  were  not  en- 
tire strangers  on  the  bosom  of  the  deep.  I  was  for  doing  some- 
thing more  with  our  navy  than  keeping  it  on  our  own  shores, 
for  the  protection  of  our  coasts  and  harbours:  I  was  for  giving 
play  to  its  gallant  and  burning  spirit ;  for  allowing  it  to  go  forth 
upon  the  seas,  and  to  encounter,  on  an  open  and  equal  field, 
whatever  the  proudest  or  the  bravest  of  the  enemy  could  bring 
against  it.  I  knew  the  character  of  its  officers  and  the  spirit  of 
its  seamen  ;  and  I  knew  that,  in  their  hands,  though  the  Hag  of 
the  country  might  go  down  to  the  bottom,  yet,  while  defended 
by  them,  it  could  never  be  dishonoured  or  disgraced. 

Since  she  was  our  enemy,  and  a  most  powerful  enemy,  I  was 
for  touching  her,  if  we  could,  in  the  very  apple  of  her  eye  ;  for 
reaching  the  highest  feather  in  her  cap ;  for  clutching  at  the 
very  brightest  jewel  in  her  crown.  There  seemed  to  me  to  be  a 
peculiar  propriety  in  all  this,  as  the  war  was  undertaken  for  the 
redress  of  maritime  injuries  alone.  It  was  a  war  declared  for 
free  trade  and  sailors'  rights.  The  ocean,  therefore,  was  the 
proper  theatre  for  deciding  this  controversy  with  our  enemy  ; 
and  on  that  theatre  it  was  my  ardent  wish  that  our  own  power 
should  be  concentrated  to  the  utmost. — Speech  in  Reply  to  CaZ- 
Iwun,  March  22(7,  1838. 


THE  LOG  CABIN. 

IT  is  the  cry  and  effort  of  the  times  to  stimulate  those  who 
are  called  poor  against  those  who  are  called  rich ;  and  yet, 
among  those  who  urge  this  cry,  and  seek  to  profit  by  it,  there  is 
Ix'trayi'd  sometimes  an  occasional  sneer  at  whatever  savours  of 
humble  life.  Witness  the  reproach  against  a  candidate  now  be- 


534  WEBSTER. 

fore  the  people  for  their  highest  honours,  that  a  log  cabin,  with 
plenty  of  hard  cider,  is  good  enougli  for  him  ! 

It  appears  to  some  persons  that  a  great  deal  too  much  use  is 
made  of  the  symbol  of  the  log  cabin."1  But  it  is  to  be.  remem- 
bered that  this  matter  of  the  log  cabin  originated,  not  with  the 
friends  of  the  Whig  candidate,  but  with  his  enemies. 
after  his  nomination  at  Jlarrisburg,  a  writer  in  one  of  the  lead- 
ing administration  papers  spoke  of  his  "log  cabin."  and  his  use 
of  "hard  cider,"  by  way  of  sneer  and  reproach.  As  might 
have  been  exported*  (for  pretenders  are  apt  to  be  thrown  off 
their  guard,)  this  taunt  at  humble  life  proceeded  from  the 
party  which  claims  a  monopoly  of  the  purest  democracy.  The 
whole  party  appeared  to  enjoy  it,  or  at  least  they  countenanced 
it  by  silent  acquiescence;  for  I  do  not  know  that,  to  this  day, 
any  eminent  individual  or  any  leading  newspaper  attached  to 
the  administration  has  rebuked  this  scornful  jeering  at  the 
supposed  humble  condition  or  circumstances  in  life,  past  or 
present,  of  a  worthy  man  and  a  war-worn  soldier.  But  it 
touched  a  tender  point  in  the  public  feeling.  It  naturally 
roused  indignation.  What  was  intended  as  reproach  was  im- 
mediately seized  on  as  merit.  "Be  it  so  !  Be  it  so  !"  was  the 
instant  burst  of  the  public  voice.  "Let  him  be  the  log-cabin 
candidate.  What  you  say  in  scorn,  we  will  shout  with  all  our 
lungs.  From  this  day  forward,  we  have  our  cry  of  rally  ;  and 
we  shall  see  whether  he  who  has  dwelt  in  one  of  the  rude 
abodes  of  the  West  may  not  become  the  best  house  in  the 
country." 

All  this  is  natural,  and  springs  from  sources  of  just  feeling. 
Other  things,  Gentlemen,  have  had  a  similar  origin.  We  all 
know  that  the  term  Whi[t  was  bestowed  in  derision,  two  hundred 
years  ago,  on  those  who  were  thought  too  fond  of  liberty  ;  and 
our  national  air  of  Yankee  Doodle  was  composed  by  British  otli- 
cers,  in  ridicule  of  the  American  troops.  Yet,  ere  long,  the 
last  of  the  British  armies  laid  down  its  arms  at  Yorkiown. 
while  this  same  air  was  playing  in  the  ears  of  officers  and  men. 
Gentlemen,  it  is  only  shallow-minded  pretenders  who  either 
make  distinguished  origin  matter  of  personal  merit,  or  obscure 
origin  matter  of  personal  reproach.  Taunt  and  scotling  at  tho 
humble  condition  of  early  life  affect  nobody,  in  this  country, 

7  The  Presidential  canvass  of  1840  was  carried  on  by  tho  Whigs  with  prodig- 
ious enthusiasm;  and  miniature  log  cabins  were  every  where  made  use  of  to 
Joed  that  enthusiasm,  and  as  the  most  effective  appeals  to  popular  intelligence. 
J  was  then  in  the  last  year  of  my  college  course;  and  the  "college  boys"  made 
many  a  night  vocal  with  the  electioneering  songof  "Tipperanoe  and  Tyler  too," 
nt  tho  same  time  drinking  whatever  "  hard  eider"  they  could  get.  II  was  in  tho 
battle  of  Tlppccanoc  that  General  Harrison  won  his  chief  military  laurels. 


SPEAKING  FOR  THE   UNIOK.  535 

but  those  who  are  foolish  enough  to  indulge  in  them  ;  and  they 
are  generally  sufficiently  punished  by  public  rebuke.  A  man 
who  is  not  ashamed  of  himself  need  not  be  ashamed  of  his  early 
condition. 

Gentlemen,  it  did  not  happen  to  me  to  be  born  in  a  log  cabin  ; 
but  my  elder  brothers  and  sisters  were  born  in  a  log  cabin, 
raised  amid  the  snow-drifts  of  New  Hampshire,  at  a  period  so 
early  that,  when  the  smoke  rose  from  its  rude  chimney,  and 
curled  over  the  frozen  hills,  there  was  no  similar  evidence  of  a 
white  man's  habitation  between  it  and  the  settlements  on  the 
rivers  of  Canada.  Its  remains  still  exist.  I  make  to  it  an  an- 
nual visit.  I  carry  my  children  to  it,  to  teach  them  the  hard- 
ships endured  by  the  generations  which  have  gone  before 
them.  I  love  to  dwell  on  the  tender  recollections,  the  kindred 
ties,  the  early  affections  and  the  touching  narratives  and  inci- 
dents, which  mingle  with  all  1  know  of  this  primitive  family 
abode.  I  weep  to  think  that  none  of  those  who  inhabited  it  are 
now  among  the  living  ;  and  if  ever  I  am  ashamed  of  it,  or  if  I 
ever  fail  in  affectionate  veneration  for  him  who  reared  it,  and 
defended  it  against  savage  violence  and  destruction,  cherished 
all  the  domestic  virtues  beneath  its  roof,  and,  through  the  fire 
and  blood  of  a  seven  years'  revolutionary  war,  shrunk  from  no 
danger,  no  toil,  no  sacrifice,  to  serve  his  country,  and  to  raise 
his  children  to  a  condition  better  than  his  own,  may  my  name 
and  the  name  of  my  posterity  be  blotted  for  ever  from  tho 
memory  of  mankind  I— Speech  at  Saratoga,  Auyimt  10,  1840, 


SIM- AKIN G  FOR  THE  UNION. 


Mi:.  I'HKSIUKNT:  I  wish  to  speak  to-day,  not  as  a  Massachu- 
setts man,  nor  as  a  Northern  man,  but  as  an  American,  and  a 
member  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  It  is  fortunate 
that  there,  is  a  Senate  of  the  United  States;  a  body  not  yet 
moved  from  its  propriety,  not  lost  to  a  just  sense  of  its  own  dig- 
nity and  its  own  high  responsibilities  ;  and  a  body  to  which  the 
country  looks,  with  confidence,  for  wise,  moderate,  patriotic, 
and  healing  counsels.  ]t  is  not  to  be  denied  that  we  live  in  the 
midst  of  strong  agitations,  and  are  surrounded  by  very  consid- 
erable dangers  to  our  institutions  and  government.  Tho  im- 
prisoned winds  are  let  loose.  The  East,  the  North,  and  the 
stormy  South  combine  to  throw  the  whole  sea  into  commotion, 
to  tci.^s  its  billows  to  the  skies,  and  to  disclose  its  profoundest 
depths.  I  do  not  affect  to  regard  myself,  Mr.  President,  as 


53C  WEBSTER. 

holding,  or  as  fit  to  hold,  the  helm  in  this  combat  with  the  polit- 
ical elements  ;  but  I  have  a  duty  to  perform,  and  I  mean  to  per- 
form it  with  fidelity,  not  without  a  sense  of  existing  dangers, 
but  not  without  hope.  I  have  a  part  to  act,  not  for  my  own 
security  or  safety ;  for  I  am  looking  out  for  no  fragment  upon 
which  to  float  away  from  the  wreck,  if  wreck  there  must  be ; 
but  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  and  the  preservation  of  all ;  and 
there  is  that  which  will  keep  me  to  my  duty  during  this  strug- 
gle, whether  the  Sun  and  the  stars  shall  appear,  or  shall  not 
appear  for  many  days.  I  speak  to-day  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.  "  Hear  me  for  my  cause."  I  speak  to-day,  out  of  a 
solicitous  and  anxious  heart,  for  the  restoration  to  the  country 
of  that  quiet  and  that  harmony  which  make  the  blessings  of  this 
Union  so  rich,  and  so  dear  to  us  all.  These  are  the  topics  that  I 
propose  to  myself  to  discuss ;  these  are  the  motives,  and  the 
sole  motives,  that  influence  me  in  the  wish  to  communicate  my 
opinions  to  the  Senate  and  the  country ;  and  if  I  can  do  any- 
thing, however  little,  for  the  promotion  of  these  ends,  I  shall 
have  accomplished  all  that  I  expect.—  Speech  of  March  7,  1850. 


OBEDIENCE   TO   INSTRUCTIONS.8 

IT  has  become,  in  my  opinion,  quite  too  common, —  and  if  the 
legislatures  of  the  States  do  not  like  that  opinion,  they  have  a 
great  deal  more  power  to  put  it  down  than  I  have  to  uphold  it, 
it  has  become,  in  my  opinion,  quite  too  common  a  practice  for 
the  State  legislatures  to  present  resolutions  here  on  all  subjects, 
and  to  instruct  us  on  all  subjects.  There  is  no  public  man  that 
requires  instruction  more  than  I  do,  or  who  requires  information 
more  than  I  do,  or  desires  it  more  heartily  ;  but  I  do  not  like  to 
have  it  in  too  imperative  a  shape.  I  took  notice,  with  pleasure, 
of  some  remarks  made  upon  this  subject,  the  other  day,  in  the 
Senate  of  Massachusetts,  by  a  young  man  of  talent  and  charac- 
ter, of  whom  the  best  hopes  may  be  entertained.  I  mean  Mr. 

8  The  doctrine  that  members  of  Congress  are  bound  to  follow  implicitly  the 
instructions  of  their  particular  constituents  was  for  many  years  pushed  so  hard, 
that  it  threatened  to  overthrow  all  manly  firmness  and  independence  of  judg- 
ment in  our  national  legislators.  In  several  cases,  grave  members  of  Congress 
became  so  weak-kneed  under  this  pressure  as  to  dishonour  themselves  by  argu- 
ing on  ono  side  of  a  given  question,  and  then  voting  on  the  other.  The  doctrine 
is  indeed  highly  flattering  to  popular  folly,  for  which  cause  political  demagogues 
favour  it,  of  course.  Perhaps  the  best  utterance  ever  made  on  the  subject  is 
Burke's,  which  will  be  found  on  page  113  of  this  volume.  But  this  of  Webster's 
is  not  unworthy  of  a  place  beside  that. 


PEACEABLE   SECESSION.  537 

Hillard.  He  told  the  Senate  of  Massachusetts  that  he  would 
vote  for  no  instructions  whatever  to  be  forwarded  to  members 
of  Congress,  nor  for  any  resolutions  to  be  offered  expressive  of 
the  sense  of  Massachusetts  as  to  what  her  members  of  Congress 
ought  to  do.  He  said  that  he  saw  no  propriety  in  one  set  of 
public  servants  giving  instructions  and  reading  lectures  to  an- 
other set  of  public  servants.  To  his  own  master  each  of  them 
must  stand  or  fall,  and  that  master  is  his  constituents.  I  wish 
these  sentiments  could  become  more  common.  I  have  never 
entered  into  the  question,  and  never  shall,  as  to  the  binding 
force  of  instructions.  I  will,  however,  simply  say  this  :  If  there 
be  any  matter  pending  in  this  body,  while  I  am  a  member  of  it, 
in  which  Massachusetts  has  an  interest  of  her  own  not  adverse 
to  the  general  interests  of  the  country,  I  shall  pursue  her  in- 
structions with  gladness  of  heart,  and  with  all  the  efficiency 
which  I  can  bring  to  the  occasion.  But  if  the  question  be  one 
which  affects  her  interest,  and  at  the  same  time  equally  affects 
the  interests  of  all  the  other  States,  I  shall  no  more  regard  her 
particular  wishes  or  instructions,  than  I  should  regard  the  wishes 
of  a  man  who  might  appoint  me  an  arbitrator  or  referee,  to 
decide  some  question  of  important  private  right  between  him 
and  his  neighbour,  and  then  instruct  me  to  decide  in  his  favour. 
If  ever  there  was  a  government  upon  Earth  it  is  this  govern- 
ment, if  ever  there  were  a  body  upon  Earth  it  is  this  body,  which 
should  consider  itself  as  composed  by  the  agreement  of  all; 
each  member  appointed  by  some,  but  organized  by  the  general 
consent  of  all,  sitting  here,  under  the  solemn  obligations  of  oath 
and  conscience,  to  do  that  which  they  think  to  be  best  for  the 
good  of  the  whole. —  Speech  of  March  7,  1850. 


PEACEABLE  SECESSION. 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  I  should  much  prefer  to  have  heard  from 
every  member  on  this  floor  declarations  of  opinion  that  this 
Union  could  never  be  dissolved,  than  the  declaration  of  opinion 
by  anybody,  that,  in  any  case,  under  the  pressure  of  any  cir- 
cumstances, such  a  dissolution  was  possible.  I  hear  with  dis- 
tress and  anguish  the  word  secession,  especially  when  it  falls 
from  the  lips  of  those  who  are  patriotic,  and  known  to  the 
country,  and  known  all  over  the  world,  for  their  political  ser- 
vices. Secession  I  Peaceable  secession  I  Sir,  your  eyes  and  mine 
are  never  destined  to  see  that  miracle.  The  dismemberment 
of  this  vast  country  without  convulsion  I  The  breaking  up  of  the 


538  WEBSTER. 

fountains  of  the  great  deop  without  ruffling  the  surface!  "Who  is 
so  foolish  —  I  beg  everybody's  pardon  — as  to  expect  to  see  any 
such  thing?  Sir,  lie  who  sees  these  states,  now  revolving  in. 
harmony  around  a  common  centre,  and  expects  to  see  them  quit 
their  places  and  lly  off  without  convulsion,  may  look  the  next 
hour  to  see  the  heavenly  bodies  rush  from  their  spheres,  and 
jostle  against  each  other  in  the  realms  of  space,  without  caus- 
ing the  wreck  of  the  Universe.  There  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
a  peaceable  secession.  Peaceable  secession  is  an  utter  impossi- 
bility. Is  the  great  Constitution  under  which  we  live,  covering 
this  whole  country,  is  it  to  be  thawed  and  melted  away  by  se- 
cession, as  the  snows  on  the  mountain  melt  under  the  influence 
of  a  vernal  Sun,  disappear  almost  unobserved,  and  run  off?  Xo, 
Sir!  No,  Sir!  I  will  not  state  what  might  produce  the  disrup- 
tion of  the  Union;  but  I  see,  as  plainly  as  I  see  the  Sun  in 
heaven,  what  that  disruption  itself  must  produce:  I  see  that  it 
must  produce  war,  and  such  a  war  as  I  will  not  describe,  in  its 
twofold  rhdntrfn: 

Peaceable  secession!  The  concurrent  agreement  of  all  the 
members  of  this  great  republic  to  separate!  Where  is  the  Hag 
of  the  republic  to  remain  ?  Where  is  the  eagle  still  to  tower? 
or  is  he  to  cower,  and  shrink,  and  fall  to  the  ground?  Why, 
Sir,  our  ancestors,  our  fathers  and  our  grandfathers,  those  of 
them  that  are  yet  living  amongst  us  with  prolonged  lives, 
would  rebuke  and  reproach  us  ;  and  our  children  and  our  grand- 
children would  cry  shame  upon  us,  if  we  of  this  generation 
should  dishonour  these  ensigns  of  the  power  of  the  government 
and  the  harmony  of  that  Union  which  is  every  day  felt  among 
us  with  so  much  joy  and  gratitude.  I  know  the  idea  has  been 
entertained,  that,  after  the  dissolution  of  this  Union,  a  South- 
ern Confederacy  might  be  formed.  I  am  sorry  that  it  has  ever 
been  thought  of,  talked  of,  or  dreamed  of,  in  the  wildest  flights 
of  human  imagination.  But  the  idea,  so  far  as  it  exists,  must 
be  of  a  separation,  assigning  the  slave  States  to  one  side,  and 
the  free  States  to  the  other.  I  may  express  myself  too  strongly, 
perhaps  ;  but  there  are  impossibilities  in  the  natural  as  well  as 
in  the  political  world ;  and  I  hold  the  idea  of  a  separation  of 
the;-e  States,  those  that  are  free  to  form  one  government,  and 
those  that  are  slave-holding  to  form  another,  as  such  an  im- 
possibility. 

Sir,  nobody  can  look  over  the  face  of  this  country  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  nobody  can  see,  where  its  population  is  the  most 
dense  and  growing,  without  being  ready  to  admit,  and  com- 
pelled to  admit,  that  ere  long  the  strength  of  America  will  be 
in  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi.  Well,  now,  I  beg  to  inquire 
what  the  wildest  enthusiast  has  to  say  on  the  possibility  of 


PEACEABLE    SECESSION.  539 

cutting  that  river  in  two,  and  leaving  free  States  at  the  source 
and  on  its  branches,  and  slave  States  down  near  its  mouth, 
each  forming  a  separate  government?  Pray,  Sir,  let  me  say  to 
the  people  of  this  country,  that  these  things  are  worthy  of 
their  pondering  and  of  their  consideration.  Here  are  five  mill- 
ions of  freemen  in  the  free  States  north  of  the  river  Ohio.  Can 
anybody  suppose  that  this  population  can  be  severed,  by  a  line 
that  divides  them  from  the  territory  of  a  foreign  and  an  alien 
government,  down  somewhere,  the  Lord  knows  where,  upon 
the  lower  banks  of  the  Mississippi  V  Sir,  I  am  ashamed  to  pur- 
sue this  line  of  remark:  I  dislike  it ;  I  have  an  utter  disgust  for 
it.  I  would  rather  hear  of  natural  blasts  and  mildews,  war, 
pestilence,  and  famine,  than  hear  gentlemen  talk  of  secession. 
To  break  up  this  great  government !  to  astonish  Europe  with 
such  an  act  of  folly  as  Europe  for  two  centuries  has  never 
beheld  ill  any  government  or  any  peoplel 

Sir,  I  hoar  there  is  a  convention  to  be  hold  at  Xashville.  lam 
bound  to  believe  that,  if  worthy  gentlemen  meet  at  Nashville 
in  convention,  their  object  will  be  to  adopt  conciliatory  coun- 
sels ;  to  advise  the  South  to  forbearance  and  moderation,  and  to 
advise  the  North  to  forbearance,  and  moderation;  and  to  incul- 
cate principles  of  brotherly  love  and  affection,  and  attachment 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  country  as  it  now  is.  I  believe,  if  the 
convention  meet  at  all,  it  will  be  for  this  purpose  :  for,  certainly, 
if  they  meet  for  any  purpose  hostile  to  the  Union,  they  have 
been  singularly  inappropriate  in  their  selection  of  a  place.  I 
remember  that,  when  the  treaty  of  Amiens  was  concluded  be- 
tween Franco  and  England,  a  sturdy  Englishman  and  a  distin- 
guished orator,  who  regarded  the  conditions  of  the  peace  as 
ignominious  to  England,  said  in  the  House  of  Commons  that,  if 
King  William  could  know  the  terms  of  that  treaty,  he  would 
turn  in  his  collin  !  Let  me  commend  this  saying  of  Mr.  Wind- 
ham,  in  all  its  emphasis  and  all  its  force,  to  any  persons  who 
shall  meet  at  Xashville  for  the  purpose  of  concerting  measures 
for  the  overthrow  of  this  Union  over  the  bones  of  Andrew 
Jackson  I 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  instead  of  speaking  of  the  possibility 
or  utility  of  secession,  instead  of  dwelling  in  those  caverns  of 
darkness,  instead  of  groping  with  those  ideas  so  full  of  all  that 
i-  horrid  and  horrible,  let  us  come  out  into  the  light  of  day  ;  let 
enjoy  the  fresh  air  of  Liberty  and  Union;  let  us  cherish 
those  hopes  which  In-long  to  us  ;  let  us  devote  ourselves  to  those 
great  objects  that  are  lit.  for  our  consideration  and  our  action; 
let  us  raise  our  concept  ions  to  the  magnitude  and  the  importance 
of  the  duties  that  devolve  upon  us;  let  our  comprehension  be 
as  broud  as  the  country  for  which  we  act,  our  aspirations  as  high 


540  WEBSTER. 

as  its  certain  destiny  ;  let  us  not  be  pigmies  in  a  case  that  calls 
for  men.  Never  did  there  devolve  on  any  generation  of  men 
higher  trusts  than  now  devolve  upon  us,  for  the  preservation  of 
this  Constitution  and  the  harmony  and  peace  of  all  who  are  des- 
tined to  live  under  it.  Let  us  make  our  generation  one  of  the 
strongest  and  brightest  links  in  that  golden  chain  which  is  des- 
tined, I  fondly  believe,  to  grapple  the  people  of  all  the  States  to 
this  Constitution  for  ages  to  come.  No  monarchical  throne 
presses  these  States  together,  no  iron  chain  of  military  power 
encircles  them  ;  they  live  and  stand  under  a  government  popu- 
lar in  its  form,  representative  in  its  character,  founded  upon 
principles  of  equality,  and  so  constructed,  we  hope,  as  to  lust 
for  ever.  In  all  its  history  it  has  been  beneficent ;  it  has  trod- 
den down  no  man's  liberty  ;  it  has  crushed  no  State.  Its  daily 
respiration  is  liberty  and.  patriotism  ;  its  yet  youthful  veins  are 
full  of  enterprise,  courage,  and  honourable  love  of  glory  and 
renown.  Large  before,  the  country  has  now,  by  recent  events, 
become  vastly  larger.  This  republic  now  extends,  with  a  vast 
breadth,  across  the  whole  continent.  The  two  great  seas  of  the 
world  wash  the  one  and  the  other  shore. —  Speech  of  March  7, 
1850. 


STANDING  UPON  THE  CONSTITUTION. 

THE  State  in  whose  representation  I  bear  a  part  is  a  Union 
State,  thoroughly  and  emphatically  :  she  is  attached  to  the 
Union  and  the  Constitution  by  indissoluble  ties  :  she  connects 
all  her  own  history  from  colonial  times,  her  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence, her  efforts  for  the  establishment  of  this  government, 
and  all  the  benefits  and  blessings  which  she  has  enjoyed  under 
it,  in  one  great  attractive  whole,  to  which  her  affections  are 
constantly  and  powerfully  drawn.  All  these  make  up  a  history 
in  which  she  has  taken  a  part,  and  the  whole  of  which  she  en- 
joys as  a  most  precious  inheritance.  She  is  a  State  for  the 
Union  ;  she  will  be  for  the  Union.  It  is  the  law  of  her  destiny  ; 
it  is  the  law  of  her  situation  ;  it  is  a  law  imposed  upon  her  by 
the  recollections  of  the  past,  and  by  every  interest  for  the  pres- 
ent and  every  hope  for  the  future. 

Mr.  President,  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  grateful 
reflection  that,  however  short  and  transient  may  be  the  lives  of 
individuals,  States  may  be  permanent.  The  great  corporations 
that  embrace  the  government  of  mankind,  protect  their  liber- 
ties, and  secure  their  happiness,  may  have,  something  of  porpe- 
tuity,  and,  as  I  might  say,  of  earthly  immortality.  For  my  part, 


STANDING   UPOK  THE   CONSTITUTION.  541 

Sir,  I  gratify  myself  by  contemplating  what  in  the  future  will 
be  the  condition  of  that  generous  State  which  has  done  me  the 
honour  to  keep  me  in  the  counsels  of  the  country  for  so  many 
years.  I  see  nothing  about  her  in  prospect  less  than  that  which 
encircles  her  now.  I  feel  that,  when  I  and  all  those  that  now 
hear  me  shall  have  gone  to  our  last  home,  and  afterwards, 
when  mould  may  have  gathered  upon  our  memories,  as  it  will 
have  done  upon  our  tombs,  that  State,  so  early  to  take  her  part 
in  the  great  contest  of  the  Revolution,  will  stand,  as  she  has 
stood  and  now  stands,  like  that  column  which,  near  her  Capi- 
tol, perpetuates  the  memory  of  the  first  great  battle  of  the 
[Revolution,  firm,  erect,  and  immovable.  I  believe  that,  if  com- 
motion shall  shake  the  country,  there  will  be  one  rock  for  ever, 
as  solid  as  the  granite  of  her  hills,  for  the  Union  to  repose 
upon.  I  believe  that,  if  disasters  arise,  bringing  clouds  which 
shall  obscure  the  onsign  now  over  her  and  over  us,  there  will 
be  one  star  that  will  but  burn  the  brighter  amid  the  darkness  of 
that  night;  and  1  believe  that,  if  in  the  remotest  ages  (I  trust 
they  will  be  infinitely  remote)  an  occasion  shall  occur  when 
the  sternest  duties  of  patriotism  arc  demanded  and  to  be  per- 
formed, Massachusetts  will  imitate  her  own  example  ;  and  that, 
as  at  the  breaking-out  of  the  Revolution  she  was  the  first  to 
offer  the  outpouring  of  her  blood  and  her  treasure  in  the  strug- 
gle for  liberty,  so  she  will  be  hereafter  ready,  when  the  emer- 
gency arises,  to  repeat  and  renew  that  offer,  with  a  thousand 
times  as  many  warm  hearts,  and  a  thousand  times  as  many 
strong  hands. 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  to  return  at  last  to  the  principal  and 
important  question  before  us.  What  are  we  to  do?  How  arc 
we  to  bring  this  emergent  and  pressing  question  to  an  issue  and 
an  end?  Here  have  we  been  seven  and  a  half  months,  disput- 
ing about  points  which,  in  my  judgment,  are  of  no  practical 
importance  to  one  or  the  other  part  of  the  country.  Are  we  to 
dwell  for  ever  upon  a  single  topic,  a  single  idea  ?  Are  we  to  for- 
get all  the  purposes  for  which  ^governments  are  instituted,  and 
continue  everlastingly  to  dispute  about  that  which  is  of  no 
essential  consequence?  1  think,  Sir,  the  country  calls  upon  us 
loudly  and  imperatively  to  settle  this  question.  I  think  that 
the  whole;  world  is  looking  to  see  whether  this  great  popular 
government,  can  get  through  such  a  crisis.  We  are  the  ob- 
served of  all  observers.  We  have  stood  through  many  trials. 
Can  we  stand  through  this,  which  takes  so  much  the  character 
of  a  sectional  controversy?  There  is  no  inquiring  man  in  all 
Europe  who  does  not  ask  himself  that  question  everyday,  when 
he  reads  the  intelligence  of  the  morning.  Can  this  country, 
with  one  set  of  interests  at  the  South,  and  another  set  of  inter- 


542  WEBSTER. 

ests  at  the  North,  and  these  interests  supposed,  but  falsely 
supposed,  to  be  at  variance, —  ran  this  people  see,  what  is  so 
evident  to  all  the  world  besides,  that  the  Tnion  is  their  main 
hrpe  and  greatest  benefit,  and  that  their  inn-rests  in  every  part 
are  entirely  compatible  V  Can  they  see,  and  will  they  feel,  that 
their  prosperity,  their  respectability  among  the  nations  of  the 
Earth,  and  their  happiness  at  home  depend  upon  the  mainten- 
ance of  their  Union  and  their  Constitution? 
I  agree  that  local  divisions  are  apt  to  warp  the  understand- 
f  men,  and  to  excite  a  belligerent  feeling  between  section 
and  section.  It  is  natural,  in  times  of  irritation,  for  one  part  of 
the  country  to  say.  "  If  you  do  that,  I  will  do  this,"  and  so  get 
uj)  a  feeling  of  hostility  and  defiance.  Then  eonies  belligerent 
legislation,  and  then  an  appeal  to  arms.  The  question  i<, 
whether  we  have  the  true  patriotism,  the  Americanism,  neces- 
sary to  carry  us  through  such  a  trial.  For  myself,  I  propose, 
Sir,  to  abide  by  the  principles  and  the  purposes  which  1  have 
avowed.  1  shall  stand  by  the  I'liion,  and  by  all  who  stand  by 
it  I  shall  do  justice  to  the  whole  country,  according  to  the  best 
of  my  ability,  in  all  I  say,  and  act  for  the  good  of  the  whole 
country  in  all  I  do.  I  mean  to  stand  upon  the  Constitution.  I 
need  no  other  platform.  I  shall  know  but  one  country.  The 
ends  I  aim  at  shall  be  my  country's,  my  Cod's,  and  Truth's.  I 
was  horn  an  American;  I  will  live  an  American;  I  shall  die  an 
American  ;  and  I  intend  to  perform  the  duties  incumbent  upon 
me  in  that  character  to  the  end  of  my  career.  I  mean  to  do  this 
with  absolute  disregard  of  personal  consequences.  AVhat  are 
personal  consequences  y  What  is  the  individual  man,  with  all 
the  good  or  evil  that  may  betide  him,  in  comparison  with  the 
good  or  evil  which  may  befall  a  great  country  in  a  crisis  like 
this,  and  in  the  midst  of  great  transactions  which  concern  t hat- 
country's  fate?  I>ct  the  consequences  be  what  they  may,  I  am 
careless.  Xo  man  can  suffer  too  much,  and  no  man  can  fall  too 
soon,  if  he  suffer  or  if  he  fall  in  defence  of  the  liberti- 
Constitution  of  his  country. <J  . 

9  The  foregoing  are,  I  believe,  the  last  word*  ppoken  by  Daniel  Weh-ter  in 
the  national  Senate ;  at  least  they  are  the  last  that  appear  in  his  published 
works.  They  an-  the  conclusion  of  a  speech  delivered  July  17,  IS~>0,  on  what 
was  called  "  The  Compromise  Bill."  And  they  seem  to  me  to  form  no  unfitting 
close  to  his  great  career  as  a  legislator,  the  noblest  and  wisest  Senator  that  has 
ever  illustrated  and  adorned  the  American  Senate.  See  Sketch  of  his  /./ 
333. 


APPEAL  FOR  THE   UKIOK.  543 


AN  APPEAL  FOR  THE  UNION.1 

FELLOW-CITIZENS  :  By  the  Act  of  Congress  of  the  30th  of 
September,  1850,  provision  was  made  for  the  extension  of  the 
Capitol,  according  to  such  plan  as  might  be  approved  by  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  for  the  necessary  sums  to 
be  expended,  under  his  direction,  by  such  architect  as  he  might 
appoint.  This  measure  was  imperatively  demanded,  for  ilio 
use  of  the  legislative  and  judiciary  departments,  the  public 
libraries,  the  occasional  accommodation  of  the  chief  magistrate, 
and  for  other  objects.  No  Act  of  Congress  incurring  a  largo 
expenditure  has  received  more  general  approbation  from  the 
people.  The  President  has  proceeded  to  execute  this  law.  He 
has  approved  a  plan  ;  he  has  appointed  an  architect ;  and  all 
things  are  now  ready  for  the  commencement  of  the  work. 

The  anniversary  of  national  independence  appeared  to  afford 
an  auspicious  occasion  for  laying  the  foundation-stone  of  tin? 
additional  building.  That  ceremony  has  now  been  performed 
by  the  President  himself  in  the  presence  and  view  of  tins  mul- 
titude. He  has  thought  that  the  day  and  the  occasion  made  a 
united  and  imperative  call  for  some  short  address  to  the  people 
here  assembled;  and  it  is  at  his  request  that  I  have  appeared 
before  you  to  perform  that  part  of  the  duty  which  was  deemed 
incumbent  on  us. 

Fellow-citizens,  fifty-eight  years  ago  Washington  stood  on 
this  spot  to  execute  a  duty  like  that  which  has  now  been  per- 
formed. He  then  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the  original  Capitol. 
is  at  the  head  of  the  government,  at  that  time  weak  in  re- 
sources, burdened  with  debt,  just  struggling  into  political  exist- 
.md  respectability,  and  agitated  by  the  heaving  waves 
which  were  overturning  European  thrones.  But  even  then,  in 
many  respects,  the  government  was  strong.  It  was  strong  in 
;i_rt  on's  own  great  character  ;  it  was  strong  in  the  wisdom 
and  patriotism  of  other  eminent  public  men,  his  political  associ- 
nd  fellow-labourers ;  and  it  was  strong  in  the  affections  of 
the  people. 

Since  that  time  astonishing  changes  have  been  wrought  in  the 
condition  and  prospects  of  tin;  American  people  ;  and  a  degree, 
'-TCSS  witnessed  with  which  the  world  can  furnish  no  par- 
allel. As  we  review  the  course  of  that  progress,  wonder  and 
amazement  arrest  our  attention  at  every  step. 

1     On  the  4th  of  Jujy,  ls:,|,  President  l-'illi v.  l;ii<l,  with  fitlin.ir  ceremonies, 

tlic  Corner-stone  of  the  Addition  to  the  Capitol.  I'nder  the  above  heading,  I 
give,  with  some  omissions,  the  latter  half  of  the  very  eloquent  address  which 
Webster,  then  Secret-try  of  rttate,  delivered  on  that  occasion. 


544  WEBSTER. 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  I  ask  you,  and  I  would  ask  every 
man,  whether  the  government  which  has  been  over  us  has 
proved  itself  an  affliction  and  a  curse  to  the  country,  or  any 
part  of  it  ? 

Ye  men  of  the  South,  of  all  the  original  Southern  States,  what 
say  you  to  all  this?  Are  you,  or  any  of  you,  ashamed  of  this 
great  work  of  your  fathers  ?  Your  fathers  were  not  they  who 
stoned  the  prophets  and  killed  them.  They  were  among  the 
prophets  ;  they  were  of  the  prophets  ;  they  were  themselves 
the  prophets. 

Ye  men  of  Virginia,  what  do  you  say  to  all  this?  Ye  men  of 
the  Potomac,  dwelling  along  the  shore  of  that  river  on  which 
WASHINGTON  lived  and  died,  and  where  his.  remains  now  rest, 
—  ye,  so  many  of  whom  may  see  the  domes  of  the  Capitol  from 
your  own  homes,  -A  hat  say  ye? 

Yc  men  of  James  River  and  the  Bay,  places  consecrated  by 
the  early  settlement  of  your  Commonwealth,  what  do  you  say  '? 
Do  you  desire,  from  the  soil  of  your  State,  or  as  you  travel  to 
the  Xorth,  to  see  these  halls  \acate<l,  their  beauty  and  orna- 
ments destroyed,  and  their  national  usefulness  gone  forever? 

Ye  men  beyond  the  Blue  liidge,  many  thousands  ui!  whom 
are  nearer  to  this  Capitol  than  to  the  scat  of  government  of 
your  own  State,  what  do  you  think  of  breaking  this  great  associ- 
ation into  fragments  of  States  and  of  people  ?  I  know  that  some 
of  you,  and  I  believe  that  you  all,  would  be  almost  as  much 
shocked  at  the  announcement  of  such  a  catastrophe,  as  if  you 
were  to  be  informed  that  the  Blue  Ridge  itself  would  soon 
totter  from  its  base.  And  ye  men  of  Western  Virginia,  who 
occupy  the  great  slope  from  the  top  of  the  AHeghanies  to  Ohio 
and  Kentucky,  what  benefit  do  you  propose  to  yourselves  from 
disunion?  If  you  "secede,"  what  do  you  "secede"  from,  and 
what  do  you  "accede  "  to  ?  Do  you  look  for  the  current  of  the 
Ohio  to  change,  and  to  bring  you  and  your  commerce  to  the 
tide-waters  of  the  Eastern  rivers  ?  What  man  in  his  senses  can 
suppose  that  you  would  remain  part  and  parcel  of  Virginia  a 
month  after  Virginia  should  have  ceased  to  be  part  and  pa  ret- 1 
of  the  United  States  ? 

The  secession  of  Virginia  !  The  secession  of  Virginia,  whether 
alone  or  in  company,  is  most  improbable,  the  greatest  of  all  im- 
probabilities. Virginia,  to  her  everlasting  honour,  acted  a  great 
part  in  framing  and  establishing  the  present  Constitution.  She 
lias  had  her  reward  and  her  distinction.  Seven  of  her  noble 
sons  have  each  filled  the  Presidency,  and  enjoyed  the  highest 
honours  of  the  country.  Dolorous  complaints  come  up  to  us 
from  the  South,  that  Virginia  will  not  head  the  inarch  of  seces- 
sion,  and  lead  the  other  Southern  States  out  of  the  Union.  This, 


AN  APPEAL  FOR  THE   UKIOtf.  545 

if  it  should  happen,  would  be  something  of  a  marvel,  certainly, 
considering  how  much  pains  Virginia  took  to  lead  these  same 
States  into  the  Union,  and  considering,  too,  that  she  has  par- 
taken as  largely  of  its  benefits  and  its  government  as  any  other 
State. 

And  ye  men  of  the  other  Southern  States,  members  of  the 
Old  Thirteen ;  yes,  members  of  the  Old  Thirteen ;— that  always 
touches  my  regard  and  my  sympathies  ;— North  Carolina,  Geor- 
gia, South  Carolina  I  what  page  in  your  history,  or  in  the  his- 
tory of  any  one  of  you,  is  brighter  than  those  which  have  been 
recorded  since  the  Union  was  formed?  or  through  what  period 
has  your  prosperity  been  greater,  or  your  peace  and  happiness 
better  secured?  What  names  even  has  South  Carolina,  now  so 
much  dissatisfied,  what  names  has  she  of  which  her  intelligent 
sons  are  more  proud  than  those  which  have  been  connected 
with  the  government  of  the  United  States  ?  In  Revolutionary 
times,  and  in  the  earliest  days  of  this  Constitution,  there  was 
no  State  more  honoured,  or  more  deserving  of  honour.  Where 
is  she  now?  And  what  a  fall  is  there,  my  countrymen!  But  I 
leave  her  to  her  own  reflections,  commending  to  her,  with  all 
my  heart,  the  due  consideration  of  her  own  example  in  times 
now  gone  by. 

Fellow-citizens,  there  are  some  diseases  of  the  mind  as  well 
as  of  the  body,  diseases  of  communities  as  well  as  diseases  of 
individuals,  that  must  be  left  to  their  own  cure:  at  least  it  is 
wise  to  leave  them  so,  until  the  last  critical  moment  shall 
arrive.  I  hope  it  is  not  irreverent,  and  certainly  it  is  not 
intended  as  reproach,  when  I  say  that  I  know  no  stronger 
expression  in  our  language  than  that  which  describes  the  resto- 
ration of  the  wayward  son, —  "He  came  to  himself."  Ho  had 
broken  away  from  all  the  ties  of  love,  family,  and  friendship. 
He  had  forsakqn  every  thing  which  he  had  once  regarded  in  his 
father's  house.  He  had  forsworn  his  natural  sympathies,  affec- 
tions, and  habits,  and  taken  his  journey  into  a  far  country.  He 
had  gone  away  from  himself  and  out  of  himself.  But  misfor- 
tune overtook  him,  and  famine  threatened  him  with  starvation 
and  death.  No  entreaties  from  homo  followed  him,  to  beckon 
him  back  ;  no  admonitions  from  others  warned  him  of  his  fate. 
But  the  hour  of  reflection  had  como,  arid  nature  and  conscience 
wrought  within  him,  until  at  length  he  came  to  himself. 

And  now  ye  men  of.'  tli<>  now  States  of  the  South!  You  are 
not  of  the  original  Thirteen.  The  battle  had  been  fought  and 
won,  the  Revolution  achieved,  and  the  Constitution  established, 
your  States  had  any  existence  as  States.  You  came  to 
a  prepared  banquet,  and  had  scats  assigned  you  at  table  just  as 
honourable  as  those  which  were  filled  by  older  guests.  You 


546  WEBSTER. 

have  been  and  are  singularly  prosperous ;  and,  if  any  one 
should  deny  this,  you  would  at  once  contradict  his  assertion. 
You  have  bought  vast  quantities  of  choice  and  excellent  land 
at  the  lowest  price  ;  and  it'  the  public  domain  has  not  been  lav- 
ished upon  you,  you  will  yourselves  admit  that  it  has  been 
appropriated  to  your  own  uses  by  a  very  liberal  hand.  And  yet 
in  some  of  these  States,  not  in  all,  persons  are  found  in  favour 
of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  or  of  secession  from  it.  Such 
opinions  are  expressed  even  where  the  general  prosperity  of 
the  community  has  been  most  rapidly  advanced.  In  the  flour- 
ishing and  interesting  State  of  Mississippi,  1'or  example,  there 
is  a  large  party  which  insists  that  her  grievances  are  intoler- 
able, that  the  whole  body  politic  is  in  a  state  of  suffering;  and 
all  along,  and  through  her  whole  extent  on  the  .Mississippi,  a 
loud  cry  rings  that  her  only  remedy  is  "Secession,  seers-ion." 
Xo\v,  (.ientlem.cn,  what  inlliction  does  the  State  of  Mississippi 
suffer  under?  What  oppression  prostrates  her  strength  or 
destroys  her  happinosV  JJefmv  we  can  judge  of  her  proper 
remedy,  we  must  know  something  of  the  d  ;iid,  for  my 

part,  I  confess  that  the  real  evil  existing  in  the  case  appears  to 
me  to  be  a  certain  inquietude  or  uneasiness  growing  out  of  a 
high  degree  of  prosperity  and  a  consciousness  of  wealth  and 
power,  which  sometimes  lead  men  to  be  ready  for  change 
to  push  on  unreasonably  to  still  higher  elevation.  If  this  be 
the  truth  of  the  matter,  her  political  doctors  are  about  right. 
If  the  complaint  spring  from  overwrought  prosperity,  for  that 
disease  I  have  no  doubt  that  secession  would  prove  a  sovereign 
remedy. 

But  I  return  to  the  leading  topic  on  which  I  was  engaged.— 
In  the  department  of  invention  there  have  been  wonderful  ap- 
plications of  science  to  arts  within  the  last  sixty  years.  The 
spacious  hall  of  the  Patent  Office  is  at  once  the  repository  and 
proof  of  American  inventive  art  and  genius.  The  resul; 
seen  in  the  numerous  improvements  by  which  human  labour  is 
abridged. 

Without  going  into  details,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  say,  that 
many  of  the  applications  of  steam  to  locomotion  and  manu- 
factures, of  electricity  and  magnetism  to  the  production  of 
mechanical  motion,  tho  electrical  telegraph,  the  registration  of 
astronomical  phenomena,  the  art  of  multiplying  engravings,  the 
introduction  and  improvement  among  us  of  all  the  important 
inventions  of  the  Old  World,  are  striking  indications  of  the 
progress  of  this  country  in  the  useful  arts.  The  network  of 
railroads  und  telegraphic  lines  by  which  this  vast  country  is 


AN1  APPEAL  FOR  THE   UNION.  547 

reticulated  have  not  only  developed  its  resources,  but  united, 
emphatically  in  metallic  bands,  all  parts  of  the  Union. 

While  the  country  has  boon  expanding  in  dimensions,  in 
numbers,  and  in  wealth,  the  government  has  applied  a  wise 
forecast  in  the  adoption  of  measures  necessary,  when  the  world 
shall  no  longer  be  at  peace,  to  maintain  the  national  honour, 
whether  by  appropriate  displays  of  vigour  abroad,  or  by  well- 
adapted  means  of  defence  at  home.  A  navy,  which  has  so 
often  illustrated  our  history  by  heroic  achievements,  though  in 
peaceful  times  restrained  in  its  operations  to  narrow  limits, 
in  its  admirable  elements,  the  means  of  great  and 
sudden  expansion,  and  is  justly  looked  upon  by  the  nation  as 
the  right  arm  of  its  power.  An  army,  still  smaller,  but  not  less 
perfect  in  its  detail,  has  on  many  a  Held  exhibited  the  military 
aptitudes  mid  prowess  of  the  race,  and  demonstrated  the  wisdom 
which  has  presided  over  its  organization  and  government, 

And  this  extension  of  territory  embraced  within  the  United 
States,  increase  of  its  population,  commerce,  and  manufactures, 
development  of  its  resources  by  canals  and  railroads,  and 
rapidity  of  intercommunication  by  means  of  steam  and  elec- 
tricity, have  all  been  accomplished  without  overthrow  of,  or 
danger  to,  the  public  liberties,  by  any  assumption  of  military 
power;  and  indeed  without  any  permanent  increase  of  the 
army,  except,  for  tin;  purpose  of  frontier  defence,  and  of  afford- 
ing a  slight  guard  to  the  public  property  ;  or  of  the  navy,  any 
further  than  to  assure  the  navigator  that,  in  whatsoever  sea  he 
shall  sail  his  ship,  he,  is  protected  by  the  stars  and  stripes  of  his 
country.  Thi>,  too,  has  been  done,  without  the  shedding  of  a 
drop  of  blood  for  treason  or  rebellion  ;  while  systems  of  popu- 
lar representation  have  regularly  been  supported  in  the  State 
governments  and  the  general  government;  while  laws,  national 
aii<i  State,  of  such  a  character  have  been  passed,  and  have  been 
-«-ly  administered,  that  i  may  stand  up  here  to-day,  and 
declare,  as  I  now  do  declare,  in  the  face  of  all  the,  intelligence, 
of  tin)  age,  that,  for  (he  period  which  has  elapsed  from  the,  day 
that  Washington  laid  the  foundation  of  the  Capitol  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  there  has  been  no  country  upon  Earth  in  which  life, 
,  and  property  have  been  more  amply  and  steadily  se- 
cured, or  more  freely  enjoyed,  than  in  these  United  States  of 
America.  Who  is  there  that  will  deny  this?  Who  is  there 
prepared  with  a  greater  or  a  better  example?  Who  is  there, 
that  can  stand  upon  the  foundation  of  facts,  acknowledged  or 
proved,  and  assert  that  these  our  republican  institutions  have 
not  answered  the  true  ends  of  government  beyond  all  precedent 
in  human  history? 

There  is  }  et  another  view.    There  are  still  higher  considera- 


548  WEBSTEK. 

tions.  Man  is  an  intellectual  being:,  destined  to  immortality. 
There  is  a  spirit  in  him,  and  the  breath  of  the  Almighty  hath 
given  him  understanding.  Then  only  is  lu>  tending  toward  bis 
proper  destiny,  while  he  seeks  for  knowledge  and  virtue,  for 
the  will  of  his  Maker,  and  for  just  conceptions  of  his  owu  duty. 
Of  all  important  questions,  there foiv,  let  this,  the  most  impor- 
tant, be  first  asked  and  first  answered  :  In  what  country  of  the 
habitable  globe,  of  great  extent  and  large  population,  are  means 
of  knowledge  the  most  generally  diffused  and  enjoyed  among 
the  people  ?  This  question  admits  of  one,  and  only  one  answer. 
It  is  here ;  it  is  here  in  these  United  States ;  it  is  among  tho 
descendants  of  those  who  settled  at  Jamestown  ;  of  those  who 
were  pilgrims  on  the  shore  of  Plymouth;  and  of  those  other 
races  of  men  who,  in  subsequent  times,  have  become  joined  in 
this  great  American  family.  Let  one  fact,  incapable  of  doubt 
or  dispute,  satisfy  every  mind  on  this  point.  The  population  of 
the  United  States  is  twenty-three  millions.  Now,  take  the  map 
of  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  spread  it  out  before  you.  Take 
your  scale  and  your  dividers,  and  lay  off  in  one  area,  in  any 
shape  you  please,  a  triangle,  square,  circle,  parallelogram,  or 
trapezoid,  and  of  an  extent  that  shall  contain  one  hundred  and 
fifty  millions  of  people,  and  there  will  be  found  within  tho 
United  States  more  persons  who  do  habitually  read  and  write 
than  can  be  embraced  within  the  lines  of  your  demarcation. 

But  there  is  something  even  more  than  this.  Man  is  not  only 
an  intellectual,  but  he  is  also  a  religious  being,  and  his  religious 
feelings  and  habits  require  cultivation.  Let  the  religious  ele- 
ment in  man's  nature  be  neglected,  let  him  be  influenced  by  no 
higher  motives  than  low  self-interest,  and  subjected  to  no 
stronger  restraint  than  the  limits  of  civil  authority,  and  he  be- 
comes the  creature  of  selfish  passion  or  of  blind  fanaticism. 
The  spectacle  of  a  nation  powerful  and  enlightened,  but  with- 
out Christian  faith,  has  been  presented,  almost  within  our  own 
day,  as  a  warning  beacon  to  the  nations.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  cultivation  of  the  religious  sentiment  represses  licentious- 
ness, incites  to  general  benevolence  and  the  practical  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  inspires  respect  for  law 
and  order,  and  gives  strength  to  the  whole  social  fabric,  at  the 
same  time  that  it  conducts  the  human  soul  upwards  to  the 
Author  of  its  being. 

Now  I  think  it  safe  to  say,  that  a  greater  portion  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  attend  public  worship,  decently  clad,  well 
behaved,  and  well  seated,  than  of  any  other  country  of  the  civ- 
ilized world.  Edifices  of  religion  are  seen  everywhere.  Their 
aggregate  cost  would  amount  to  an  immense  sum  of  money. 
They  are,  in  general,  kept  in  good  repair,  and  consecrated  to  tho 


Atf  APPEAL  FOB  THE  UKIOX.  549 

purpose  of  public  worship.  In  these  edifices  the  people  regu- 
larly assemble  on  the  Sabbath-day,  which,  by  all  classes,  is 
sacredly  set  apart  for  rest  from  secular  employment  and  for 
religious  meditation  and  worship,  to  listen  to  the  reading  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  discourses  from  pious  ministers  of  the 
several  denominations. 

This  attention  to  the  wants  of  the  intellect  and  of  the  soul,  as 
manifested  by  the  voluntary  support  of  schools  and  colleges,  of 
churches  and  benevolent  institutions,  is  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable characteristics  of  the  American  people,  not  less  strik- 
ingly exhibited  in  the  new  than  in  the  older  settlements  of  the 
country.  On  the  spot  where  the  first  trees  of  the  forest  were 
felled,  near  the  log  cabins  of  the  pioneers,  are  to  be  seen  rising 
together  the  church  and  the  school-house.  So  has  it  been  from 
the  beginning,  and  God  grant  that  it  may  thus  continue  1 

Who  does  not  admit  that  this  unparalleled  growth  in  pros- 
perity and  renown  is  the  result,  under  Providence,  of  the  union 
of  these  States  under  a  general  Constitution,  which  guarantees 
to  each  State  a  republican  form  of  government,  and  to  every 
man  the  enjoyment  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness, live  from  civil  tyranny  or  ecclesiastical  domination  ? 

And,  to  bring  home  this  .idea  to  the  present  occasion,  who 
does  not  feel  that,  when  President  Washington  laid  his  hand 
on  the  foundation  of  the  first  Capitol,  he  performed  a  great 
work  of  perpetuation  of  the  Union  and  the  Constitution? 
Who  does  not  feel  that  this  seat  of  the  general  government, 
healthful  in  its  situation,  central  in  its  position,  near  the  moun- 
tains whence  gush  springs  of  wonderful  virtue,  teeming  with 
Nature's  richest  products,  and  yet  not  far  from  the  bays  and 
the  great  estuaries  of  the  sea,  easily  accessible,  and  generally 
agroi-nblo  in  climate  and  association,  does  give  strength  to  the 
union  of  these  States?  that  this  city— bearing  an  immortal 
n.-'.nie,  with  its  broad  streets  and  avenues,  its  public  squares, 
and  magnificent  edifices  of  the  general  government,  erected 
for  tin*,  purpose  of  carrying  on  within  them  the  important  busi- 
>t  the  several  departments,  for  the  reception  of  wonderful 
nii'.l  curious  inventions,  for  the  preservation  of  the  records  of 
American  learning  and  genius,  of  extensive  collections  of  the 
products  of  Nature  and  Art,  brought  hither  for  study  and  com- 
•  n  from  all  parts  of  the  world ;  adorned  with  numerous 
churches,  and  sprinkled  over,  I  am  happy  to  say,  with  many 
public  schools,  where  all  the  children  of  the  city,  without  dis- 
tinction, have  the  means  of  obtaining  a  good  education;  and 
with  academies  and  colleges,  professional  schools  and  public 
libraries  — should  continue  to  receive,  as  it  has  heretofore 


550  WEBSTER. 

received,  the  fostering  care  of  Congress,  and  should  be  re- 
garded as  the  permanent  seat  of  the  national  government  V 

With  each  succeeding  year  new  interest  is  added  to  tin-  >pot  : 
it  becomes  connected  with  all  the  historical  associations  of  our 
country,  with  her  statesmen  and  her  orators;  and,  alas!  its 
cemetery  is  annually  enriched  by  the  ashes  of  her  cho>en  sons. 

Before  u>  i-  the  broad  and  beautiful  river,  separating  two  of 
the  original  thirteen  States,  which  a  late  Piv>idcnt.  a  man  of 
determined  purpose  and  inllexiblo  will,  but  patriotic  heart, 
desired  to  span  with  arches  of  ever-enduring  granite,  sym- 
bolical of  the  firmly  cemented  union  of  the  North  and  the 
South.  That  President  was  (Jeneral  Jackson. 

On  its  banks  ivpose  the  ashes  of  the  Father  of  his  Country; 
and  at  our  side,  by  a  singular  felicity  of  position,  overlooking 
the  city  which  he  designed,  and  which  bears  his  name,  rises  to 
his  memory  the  marble  column,  sublime  in  iN  simple  grandeur, 
and  litly  intended  to  reach  a  loftier  height  than  any  similar 
structure  on  the  surface  of  the  whole  Karth.  Let  the  votive 
offerings  of  his  grateful  countrymen  be  freely  contributed,  to 
carry  this  monument  higher  and  still  higher  !  May  1  sa\ . 
another  occasion.  M  Let  it  rise  !  let  it  rise,  till  it  meet  the  Sun  in 
his  coming;  let  the  earliest  light  of  the  morning  gild  it,  and 
parting  day  linger  and  play  on  its  summit  I" 

Fellow-citizens,  what  contemplations  are  awakened  in  our 
minds  as  we  assemble  hen'  to  m:nact  a  scene  like  that  per- 
formed by  Washington!  Rethinks  I  see  his  venerable  form 
now  before  me,  as  presented  in  the  glorious  statue  by  Houdon, 
now  in  the  Capitol  of  Virginia.  He  is  dignified  and  grave  ;  but 
concern  and  anxiety  seem  to  soften  the  lineaments  of  his  coun- 
tenance. The  government  over  which  he  presides  is  yet  in  the 
crisis  of  experiment.  Xot  free  from  troubles  at  home,  1. 
the  world  in  commotion  and  arms  all  around  him.  He  sees 
that  imposing  foreign  powers  are  half-disposed  to  try  the 
strength  of  the  recently-established  American  government. 
We  perceive  that  mighty  thoughts,  mingled  with  fears;, 
as  hopes,  are  struggling  within  him.  He  heads  a  short  proces- 
sion over  these  then  naked  fields  ;  he  crosses  yonder  stream  on 
a  fallen  tree;  he  ascends  to  the  top  of  this  eminence,  whose 
original  oaks  of  the  forest  stand  as  thick  around  him  as  if  the 
spot  had  been  devoted  to  Druidical  worship,  and  here  he  per- 
forms the  appointed  duty. 

And  now,  fellow-citi/ens,  if  this  vision  were  a  reality;  if 
Washington  actually  were  now  amongst  us,  and  if  lie  could 
draw  around  him  the  shades  of  the  great  public  men  of  his  «>wn 
day,  patriots  and  warriors,  orators  and  statesmen,  and  were  to 
address  us  in  their  presence,  would  he  not  say  to  us  :  "Ye  men 


AN   APPEAL  FOB  THE   UNION.  551 

of  this  generation,  I  rejoice,  and  thank  God  for  being  able  to  see 
that  our  labours  and  toils  and  sacrifices  were  not  in  vain.  You 
are  prosperous,  you  arc  happy,  you  are  grateful ;  the  lire  of  lib- 
erty burns  brightly  and  steadily  in  your  hearts,  while  DUTY  and 
the  LAW  restrain  it  from  bursting  forth  in  wild  and  destructive 
conflagration.  Cherish  liberty,  as  you  love  it ;  cherish  its  secu- 
rities, as  yon  wish  to  preserve  it.  Maintain  the  Constitution 
which  we  laboured  so  painfully  to  establish,  and  which  has 
been  to  yon  such  a  source  of  inestimable  blessings.  Preserve 
the  union  of  the  States,  cemented  as  it  was  by  our  prayers,  our 
tears,  and  our  blood.  Be  true  to  God,  to  your  country,  ;ind  to 
your  duty.  So  shall  the  whole  Eastern  world  follow  the  morn- 
ing Sun  to  contemplate  yon  as  a  nation  ;  so  shall  all  generations 
honour  yon,  as  they  honour  us;  and  so  shall  that  Almighty 
Power  which  so  graciously  protected  us,  and  which  now  pro- 
tects yon,  shower  its  blessings  upon  you  and  your  posterity." 

Crcat  Father  of  your  Country  !  we  heed  your  words  ;  we  teel 
their  force  as  if  you  now  uttered  them  with  lips  of  tlesh  and 
blood.  Your  example  teaches  us,  your  affectionate  addresses 
teach  us,  your  public  life  teaches  us  your  sense  of  the  value,  of 
the  blessings  of  the  Cnion.  Those  blessings  our  fathers  have 
ta.-ted,  and  we  have  tasted,  and  still  taste.  Xor  do  \ve  intend 
that  those  who  come  after  us  shall  be  denied  the  same  high 
fruition.  Onr  honour  as  well  as  our  happiness  is  concerned. 
We  cannot,  we  dan-  not,  wo  will  not,  betray  our  sacred  trust. 
We  will  not  lilch  from  posterity  the  treasure  placed  in  our 
hand*  to  be  transmitted  to  other  generations.  The  bow  that 
gilds  the  clouds  in  the.  heavens,  the  pillars  that  uphold  the 
lirmament,  may  disappear  and  fall  away  in  the  hour  appointed 
!ie  will  of  (iod  ;  bul,  until  that  day  comes,  or  so  long  as  our 
lives  may  last,  no  ruthless  hand  shall  undermine  that  bright 
arch  of  Vnion  and  Liberty  which  spans  the  continent  from 
Washington  to  ( 'alifornia. 

IY!low-citi/ens,  we  must  sometimes  be  tolerant  to  folly,  and 
patient  at  the  sight  of  the  extreme  waywardness  of  men  ;  but  I 
confess  that,  when  I  reflect  on  the  renown  of  our  past  history, 
on  our  present  prosperity  and  greatness,  and  on  what  the 
future  hath  yet  to  unfold,  and  when  I  see  that  there  are  men 
who  can  find  in  all  this  nothing  good,  nothing  valuable,  nothing 
truly  glorious,  I  feel  that  all  their  reason  has  tied  away  from 
them,  and  left  the  entire  control  over  their  judgment  and  their 
actions  to  insanity  and  fanaticism;  and,  more  than  all,  fellow- 
citi/cns,  if  the,  purposes  «>f  fanatics  and  disunionists  should  be 
accomplished,  the  patriotic  and  intelligent  of  our  generation 
would  seek  to  hide  themselves  from  the  scorn  of  the  world,  and 
go  about  to  liud  dishonourable  graves. 


552  WEBSTER. 

Fellow-citizens,  take  courage;  be  of  good  cheer.  We  shall 
come  to  no  such  ignoble  end.  We  shall  live,  and  not  die. 
Burins  the  period  allotted  to  our  several  lives,  we  shall  con- 
tinue to  rejoice  in  the  return  of  this  anniversary.  The  ill- 
omened  sounds  of  fanaticism  will  be  hushed  ;  the  ghastly  spec- 
tres of  Secession  and  Disunion  will  disappear ;  and  the  enemies 
of  united  constitutional  liberty,  if  their  hatred  cannot  be  ap- 
peased, may  prepare  to  have  their  eyeballs  seared  as  they  be- 
hold the  steady  flight  of  the  American  eagle,  on  his  burnished 
wings,  for  years  and  years  to  come. 

President  Fillmore,  it  is  your  singularly  good  fortune  to 
perform  an  act  such  as  that  which  the  earliest  of  your  prede- 
cessors performed  fifty-eight  years  ago.  You  stand  where  ho 
stood  ;  you  lay  your  hand  on  the  corner-stone  of  a  building 
designed  greatly  to  extend  that  whose  corner-stone  he  laid, 
('hanged,  changed  is  every  thing  around.  The  same  Sun  indeed 
shone  upon  his  head  which  now  shines  upon  yours.  The  same 
bmad  river  rolled  at  his  feet,  and  bathes  his  last  resting-place, 
that  now  rolls  at  yours.  But  the  site  of  this  city  was  then 
mainly  an  open  Held.  Streets  and  avenues  have  MHO 
laid  out  and  completed,  squares  and  public  grounds  inclosed 
and  ornamented,  until  the  city  which  bears  his  name,  although 
comparatively  inconsiderable  in  numbers  and  wealth,  has  lie- 
come  quite  lit  to  be  the  seat  of  government  of  a  great  and 
united  people. 

Fellow-citizens,  I  now  bring  this  address  to  a  close,  by  ex- 
pressing to  you,  in  the  words  of  the  great  Roman  orator,  the 
deepest  wish  of  my  heart,  and  which  I  know  dwells  deeply  in 
the  hearts  of  all  who  hear  me:  "Duomodo  luec  opto  ;  unum,  UT 

MOKIEXS     POPULUM    ROMANU3I    LIBEHl  M     IIIiLlXQFAM  ;     llOC 

rnihi  majus  a  diis  immortalihiis  dari  mini  potest :  altermn,  ut 
ita  cuique  eveniat,  ut  de  republica  quisque  mereatur.  "- 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  with  hearts  void  of  hatred,  envy 
and  malice  towards  our  own  countrymen,  or  any  of  them,  or 
towards  the  subjects  or  citizens  of  other  governments,  or 
towards  any  member  of  the  great  family  of  Man  ;  but  exulting, 
nevertheless,  in  our  own  peace,  security,  and  happiness,  in  the 
grateful  remembrance  of  the  past,  and  the  glorious  hopes  of  the 
future,  let  us  return  to  our  homes,  and  with  all  humility  and 
devotion  offer  our  thanks  to  the  Father  of  all  our  mercies,  polit- 
ical, social,  and  religious. 

2  This  quotation  is  from  Cicero,  and  maybe  Englished  thus:  "Ouly  these 
two  tilings  1  crave, —  lirst,  that  at  my  death  I  may  leave  the  Roman  people  free, 
than  which  no  greater  boon  can  be  granted  me  by  the  immortal  gods;  next,  that 
every  man's  lot  may  be  carved  out  to  him  according  to  his  merits  as  a  citizen  of 
the  republic." 


FRANCIS     BACON: 

SKETCH   OF   HIS  LIFE. 


FRANCIS  BACON,  the  great  Light  of  modern  Philosophy,  was  the  son  of 
Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  who  for  twenty  years  held  the  office  of  Lord  Keeper 
of  the  Great  Seal.  He  was  born  at  York  House,  London,  the  residence  of 
his  father,  on  the  22d  of  January,  15G1...  His  mother,  Anne  Cooke,  was 
his  father's  second  wife,  and  had  one  other  son,  Anthony,  two  years  older 
than  Francis.  As  her  oldest  sister  was  the  wife  of  Lord  Treasurer  Bur- 
leigh,  Francis  stood,  from  his  birth,  in  a  sort  of  double  relation  to  the 
Court.  Both  Ladv  Bnrleigh  and  Lady  Bacon  were  highly  educated 
women;  their  father,  Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  being  the  preceptor  of  King 
Kdward  the  Sixth.  Lady  Bacon,  before  her  marriage,  translated  Bishop 
Jewel's  Apology  into  Latin,  and  is  said  to  have  done  it  so  well,  that  the 
good  prelate  could  discover  no  error  in  it,  nor  suggest  any  alteration. 

Of  the  childhood  of  Francis  and  his  brother  little  is  known.  Their  early 
education  was  superintended  by  their  accomplished  mother.  The  health 
of  Francis  was  delicate  and  fragile  ;  which  may  partly  account  for  the  stu- 
dions  and  thoughtful  turn  which  seems  to  have  marked  his  boyhood. 
Queen  Elizabeth,  it  is  said,  took  special  delight  in  ''  trving  him  with  ques- 
tions," when  he  was  a  little  boy;  and  was  so  much  pleased  with  the  sense 
and  gravity  of  his  answers,  that  she  used  to  call  him  in  sport  her  "young 
Lord  Keeper."  And  Bacon  himself  tells  us  that,  in  his  boyhood,  the 
Queen  once  asked  him  how  old  he  was,  and  that  lie  promptly  replied, 
'•  Two  years  younger  than  your  Majesty's  reign."  It  is  iilso  said  that, 
when  very  young,  he  stole  away  from  his  playfellows,  to  investigate  the 
cause  of  a  singular  echo  in  St.  James's  Fields,  which  had  excited  his 
curiosity. 

At  the  age  of  thirteen,  Bacon  entered  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  where 
he  remained  three  years,  and  then  left  without  taking  a  degree.  It  is  said 
that,  while  in  college,  he  studied  diligently  the  great  models  of  antiquity; 
!>nt  even  at  that  early  age  he  took  a  dislike  to  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle, 
not  on  account  of  the  author,  to  whom  he  ascribed  all  high  attributes,  but 
for  the  nnfriiitfulness  of  the  method  ;  it  being  a  philosophy  strong  only  for 
di-pntations  and  contentions,  but  barren  of  works  for  the  benefit  of  the 
iife  of  man. 

The  Lord  Keeper  had  designed  his  son  Francis  for  a  public  career  as  a 
statesman  or  diplomatist,  and  with  that  view  took  him  out  of  college,  at 
of  sixteen,  and  sent  him  to  Paris,  where  he  spent  some  time  under 
•  of  Sir  Amvas  Paulct.  the  F-nglish  ambassador  at  the  French  Court. 
nl  that  while  there  he  invented  an  ingenious  method  of  writing  in 
cipher.  The  main  purpose  in  sending  him  abroad  was,  that  he  might 
stu.ly  7iien  ;  and  with  that  view  he  travelled  to  various  places  in  France 
and  Italy  ;  but  it  well  appears  that,  though  he  was  a  keen  observer  of  men, 
lie  could"  not  withdraw  his  mind  altogether  from  the  investigation  of  natu- 
ral phenomena.  After  about  three  years  spent  on  the  Continent,  he  was 
called  home  by  the  sudden  death  of  his  father.  This  event  changed  the 
whole,  course,  of  his  life.  Sir  Nicholas  had  intended  to  purchase  an  estate 
for  Francis,  as  he  had  done  for  his  other  sons  ;  but,  as  death  came  upon 


554  BACOX. 

him  before  this  intention  was  carried  out,  the  money  was  divided  equally 
amonir  all  his  children,  the  youngest  son  being  thus  left  with  only  one  fifth 
of  what  was  intended  for  him  :  so  that,  instead  of  living  only  to  study,  he 
was  under  the  necessity  of  studying  how  to  live. 

Bacon  now  fixed  upon  the  law  as  hi>  profession,  and  in  1580  became  i\ 
memher  of  (irav's  Inn,  which  wa>  one  of  the  four  principal  schools  or  col- 
leges lor  students  of  the  law  in  London.  As  he  had  <rreat  power  of  appli- 
cation in  whatever  he  undertook,  his  all-lifted  mind  made  swift  ad vanee>  in 
leiral  studies,  and  in  June.  I5S2,  he  was  admitted  as  an  utter  harristcr, 
which  was  the  first  decree  in  lejral  practice.  February,  1.">SG,  saw  him 
advanced  to  what  wa>  called  the  hiirh  table  of  (irav's  Inn,  and  he  soon 
after  became  a  heneher.  Meanwhile  he  had  kept  up  his  philosophical 
studies,  and  published  the  first  fruits  tliercof  in  a  work  rather  ambitiously 
entitled  Tin  (lr<-iti*t  l>irtli  <>f  Time;  which,  houever.  fell  so  dead  upon  the 
world  that  it  is  now  heard  of  only  in  one  of  his  letters,  written  lon^  after- 
ward-:, to  Father  Fuli;cntio  ;  and  its  only  clK  ct  at  the.  time  was  to  mark 
him  out  as  a  rash  spcculatist. 

In  1584,  while  yet  a  student  of  Cray's  Inn.  Bacon  was  elected  to  Parlia- 
ment by  one  of  the  borough  con>titueueies  of  1  )or-ct-liire.  On  th'. 
stajze  he  continued  to  figure  COD&picuouslv  for  upwards  of  thirty  year*.  In 
the  Kail  of  15SIJ  he  took  his  scat  in  the  [fou&C  of  Commons  for  Taunton  ; 
and  in  the  next  Parliament  we  liud  him  represent in.i:  Liverpool.  In  Feb- 
ruary. l.V.U,  he  was  meinher  for  the  County  of  Middlesex  ;  and  from  that 
time  onward  his  reputation  as  a  state-man  stood  so  hi-h.  that  various 
constituencies  appear  In  have  striven  for  the  honour  of  having  him  as  their 
representative  ;  and  in  some  instance's  he  was  elected  for  several  p  . 
the  same  time.  Bacon  was  an  exceedingly  industrious  and  useful  member 
of  1'ar'iiameiit.  As  a  practical  legislator,  lie  was  probably  second  to  no  man 
of  his  time.  His  irreat  skill  and  dili-euce  in  the  business  uf  his  place  caused 
him  to  l>e  put  upon  many  important  committees;  and  whenever  he  ad- 
dressed the  whole  IIou.se,  as  he  vcrv  often  did.  he  appeal's  to  have  surpassed 
all  the  others  both  in  commanding  and  rewarding  the  attention  of  the 
members,  lien  .lonson  tells  us  that  "  the  fear  of  every  man  who  heard  him 
was,  lest  he  should  make  ;m  end." 

One  passage  in  his  pariiamcntarv  lite  seems  to  call  for  some  special  notice. 
In  the  Parliament  of  15'.l.>,  upon  a  question  of  irrantiu;:  supplies,  the  two 
Houses  appointed  each  a  committee,  t-j  confer  together,  and  make  a  joint 
re|K>rt.  When  the  result  of  that  conference  came  up,  Bacon  opposed  the 
action,  claiming  f»r  the  Commons  the  exelusr.e  ri^ht  to  originate 
that  nature;  and  he  moved  that  the  House  should  "proceed  herein  by 
themselves  apart  from  their  Lordships."  Thus  his  opposition  went  upon 
the  ground  of  privilege.  Nevertheless,  both  on  that  point,  and  also  on  the 
terms  of  the  subsidy,  he  was  outvoted,  and  he  acquiesced.  His  conduct  wa> 
very  offensive  to  the  Queen  ;  and  he  is  charged  with  having  met  her  repri- 
mand with  "  the  most  abject  apologies."  Even  if  this  were  true,  it  was 
nothing  more  than  the  whole  House  of  Commons  had  often  done  before. 
But  we  have  two  letters  from  Bacon  on  the  subject,  addressed  to  Bur'.cL-  !i 
and  Essex;  both  in  a  tone  of  manly  self-justification.  The  Queen  was 
anury  at  his  speeches,  and  lie  expressed  his -rief  that  she  should  "  retain  an 
hard' conceit  of  them."  He  adds  the  following:  "It  mi.irht  please  her 
sacred  Majesty  to  think  what  mv  end  should  he  in  those  .speeches,  if  it  were 
not  dutv.  and  dutv  alone.  /  din  not  att  aini)>l<'  Intt  1  kmni'  t/n  ntinmo 
u'di/  to  please.  And  whereas  popularity  hath  been  objected,  I  muse  what 
care  1  should  take  to  please  many,  that  taketh  a  course  of  life  to  deal  with 
few." 

lTp  to  this  time,  and  for  some  years  longer.  Bacon  gained  no  luerame 
position.  For  reasons  which  I  cannot  stav  to  explain,  his  uncle,  the  Lord 
Treasurer,  lent  him  but  scanty  and  grudging  help.  The  only  thing  indeed 


SKETCH  OP  HIS  LIFE.  555 

which  lii's  Lordship  did  for  this  illustrious  kinsman  was  to  procure  for  him, 
in  1589,  the  reversion  of  the  clerkship  of  the  Star  Chamber,  which  was 
worth  sumo  .t'K',00  a  year,  hut  which  did  not  i'ali  vacant  till  twenty  years 
after.  Though  Bacon 'did  his  work  well,  hoth  as  a  lawyer  and  a  Legislator, 
still  his  thoughts  and  aspirations  pointed  elsewhere.  He  had  indeed  a 
strong  desire  of  office,  hut  it  was  not  a  selfish  desire  :  it  was  rather  the  in- 
structive yearning  of  his  most  original  and  comprehensive  genius  for  leave 
to  range  in  iis  proper  home.  Jlis  highest  amliilion  was  for  a  place  which 
should  supply  his  needs,  and  at  the  same  tune  give  him  leisure  to  prosecute 
his  intellectual  conquests.  Having  taken  all  knowledge  to  be  his  province, 
with  his  vast  contemplative  ends  he  united  hut  moderate  civil  ends.  He 
had  indeed  an  ardent,  admiring,  and  steadfast  friend  in  the  Earl  of  Kssex, 
who  did  all  he  could  to  help  him  in  the  matter  of  office  nml  salary;  hut 
vas  so  rash  in  his  temper,  so  ill-judging  and  so  headstrong  id  his 
proceedings,  that  his  friendship  proved  rather  a  hindrance  than  a  help. 

In  151H  the  office  of  Attorney-!  iencral  became  vacant.  Bacon  had  hopes 
of  the  place,  and  Kssex  lent  his  influence  in  that  behalf;  but  the  Queen's 
displeasure  could  not  be  overcome.  After  a  delay  of  many  months,  during 
which  Bacon  was  kept  in  suspense,  the  office,  was  giren  to  Sir  Edward 
Coke.  By  this  promotion,  the  place  of  Solicitor-General  fell  vacant.  Bacon 
then  fixed  his  eye  on  that  office,  and  Kssex  worked  for  him  with,  all  his 
might  ;  but.  after  a  suspense  of  a  ycnr  and  a  half,  his  hopes  were  again 
blasted  by  the  appointment  of  Sergeant  Fleming.  Chagrined  and  mortified 
at  the  failure  of  his  suit,  the  generous  Essex  next  conceived  the  design  of 
compensating  Bacon  with  a  liberal  share  of  his  own  propertv.  He  accord- 
ingly proposed  to  give  him  an  estate  worth  about  .€1800,  equivalent  to  some 
$.")(>, 000  in  our  time.  But  liacon's  insight  of  character  naturally  made 
him  icluctant  to  incur  sucli  obligations,  a>  he  could  not  but  see  that  the 
Earl  \\as  likely  to  mar  all  by  his  violent  courses.  lie  declined  the  offer. 
K>M'.\  insisted,  and  Bacon  at  last  vielded,  but  with  such  words  as  show  that 
he  had  Do  just  a  presentiment  of  what  the  Earl  was  coming  to.  "My 
Lord,"  said  he,  ''  I  see  I  must  be  your  homagcr  and  hold  land  of  your  gift.: 
but  do  you  know  the  manner  of  doing  homage  by  law  !  Always  it  is  with 
a  saving  Of  his  faith  to  the  King  and  his  other  lords  ;  and  therefore,  my 
Lord,  I  can  be  no  more  yours  than  1  wa>,  ami  it  must  be  with  the  ancient 
savp! 

In  April,  1590,  the  Mastership  of  the,  liolls —  an  office  having  charge  of 
all  patents  that  pass  the  (Jreat  Seal,  and  of  the  records  of  the  Chancery 
Court—  became  vacant,  and  Bacon  was  a  candidate  for  the  place.  Essex 
again  supported  his  claims,  but  with  the  same  result  as  before, —  suspense, 
and  Anal  disappointment.  This  was  followed,  the  next  year,  by  an  estrange- 
ment between  Bacon  and  Kssex.  The  Earl's  rash  and  impetuous  nature 
was  carrying  him  into  dangerous  ways,  and  Bacon's  wise  counsels  and 
friendly  warnings  were  naturally  distasteful  to  a  man  so  averse  to  any  self- 
restraint.  In  the  Spring  of  1599,  before  Essex  set  out  on  his  expedition  to 
Ireland,  Bacon  had  .so  far  renewed  his  intercourse  with  him  as  to  write  him 
several  fricndlv  letters  ot  advice,  warning  him  that  "  merit  is  worthier  than 
fame,"  and  that  "  obedience  is  better  than  sacrifice."  In  September  follow- 
ing, the  Earl  suddenly  returned  from  that  ill-starred  cxj>edition,  covered 
with  dishonour,  and  not  free  from  disloyal  and  defiant  thoughts. 

1  now  come,  to  what  is  commonly  regarded  as  the  darkest  passage  in 
Bacon's  life.  In  some  respects  it  is  rather  dark  indeed  ;  yet  the  indictment, 
to  me,  has  sometimes  been  great lv  overcharged, —  an  error  which  I 
would  fain  avoid.  Some  vears  before  this  time,  Bacon  had  been  appointed 
by  the  Queen  one  of  her  counsel  learned  in  the  law.  This  office,  he  still 
held,  and  was  of  course  bound  to  its  duties.  The  crisis,  which  he  had  long 
foreboded,  and  had  done  his  utmost  to  prevent,  had  now  come.  In  the 
Spring  of  1000  the  Queen  was  for  proceeding  against  Essex  by  public  in- 


550  BACON. 

formation.  Bacon  dissuaded  her  from  this,  but  not  without  jriving  her 
offence.  She  finally  resolved  that  the  matter  should  IK?  heard  before  a 
commission,  and  her  counsel  hail  their  parts  aoiirned  them.  Bacon  he^ed 
to  he  excused,  hut  held  himself  ready  to  obey  the  (.^teen's  commands, 
thinkinjr  that  by  yielding  so  far  he  mijrht  he  IB  a  better  position  to  serve 
KSM-X.  At  this  time  he  knew  nothing  of  the  Earl's  treasonable  de>iurns, 
and  looked  upon  the  affair  as  a  storm  that  would  soon  blow  over, 
was  acquitted  of  disloyalty,  hut  eensured  for  contempt  and  disobedience. 
By  the  Queen's  order,  Bacon  drew  up  a  narrative  of  what  had  passed,  in 
which  he  touched  the  Karl's  faults  so  tenderly,  that  the  Queen  told  him 
"  she  perceived  old  love  would  not  easily  be  forgotten"  ;  and  he  with  -Treat 
adroitness  replied  that  he  hoped  she  meant  that  of  herself.  And  in  a  letter 
written  about  this  time,  he  sjn-aks  as  follows  :  "  For  my  Lord  of  1 
am  not  servile  to  him,  having  regard  to  my  sujK-rior  duty.  I  have  been 
much  bound  to  him.  And,  on  tin-  other  side,  1  have  spent  more  timo  and 
more  thoughts  about  his  wcll-doini;  than  I  ever  did  about  mine  own." 

Kssex  was  a.irain  at  larire.  and  had  his  fate  onee  more  in  his  own  hands. 
But  it  soon  appeared  that  lie  was  rather  emlM>!dened  than  checked  in  his 
fatal  career.  While  he  was  driving  on  his  plot-  in  secret,  the  Queen  had 
source.;  of  information  which  Bacon  knew  not  of.  In  his  ignorance  of  the 
whole  truth.  Bacon  still  kept  up  his  defence  of  K-M-X.  till  at  last  the  Quern, 
supposing  him  to  know  as  much  as  her>elf.  ^ot  so  anyry  at  his  importunity 
that  she  would  no  longer  see  him.  This  was  in  the  Fall  of  KiiH».  Karly 
in  .lanuarv,  1C>01,  Bacon  was  a^ain  admitted  to  the  Queen's  preseuee.  and 
S]ioke  his  mind  to  her  as  follows:  "Madam,  I  see  you  withdraw  your 
favour  from  me,  and  now  that  I  have  h»t  many  friends  for  your  sake,  I 
shall  lose  you  too.  A  .irn  at  many  love  me  not,  l>ecanse  they  "think  1  have 
been  against  mv  Lord  Ks>ex  ;  and  you  love  me  not,  because  you  know  I 
have  been  for  him  :  yet  will  1  never  repent  me  that  I  have  dealt  in  simplic- 
ity of  heart  towards  you  both,  without  respect  of  cautions  to  myself."  The 
Queen  was  moved  by  his  earnestness,  and  spoke  kindly  to  him,  but  said 
nothing  of  Kssex.  Bacon  then  determined  to  meddle  no  more  in  the  mat- 
ter, and  did  not  see  the  Queen  a^ain  till  the  Karl  had  put  himself  beyond 
the  reach  of  intercession. 

Thenceforth  Kssex  seems  to  have  cast  off  all  restraint.  Left  to  his  own 
head,  and  perhaps  to  the  bad  counsels  of  some  who  were  nsiujj  him  as  a 
tool,  he  plunged  into  crime  with  the  recklessness  of  downright  infatuation. 
Of  his  doin-rs  suffice  it  to  say  that  they  were  clearly  treasonable,  and  that 
nothing  less  than  treason  could  possibly  be  made  out  of  them,  <  )n  the  1'Jth 
of  February  he  was  formally  arraigned  and  brought  to  trial.  Bacon,  as 
one  of  the  Queen's  counsel,  took  the  part  assigned  to  him.  The  defence 
broke  down  at  all  points,  and  Kssex  was  of  course  condemned.  Bacon 
spoke  twice  in  the  trial  ;  and  of  his  course  the  worst  that  can  fairly  be  said 
appears  to  be.  that  the  dues  of  personal  pratitude  did  not  withhold  him 
from  pressing  the  argument  against  the  Karl  somewhat  more  harshly  than 
hi>  duty  to  the  Crown  absolutely  required.  On  the  one  hand.it  is  allowed 
that  Kssex  had  "spent  all  his  power,  mijrht.  authority,  and  amity"  in 
Bacon's  behalf.  On  the  other  hand.  Bacon  had  tried  his  utmost  to  serve 
Kssex  ;  he  had  stuck  by  him  to  the  -Treat  and  manifest  peril  of  himself, 
and  never  ceased  to  plead  his  cause,  till  that  cause  became  utterly  hopeless. 
How  much  a  man  ou-rht  to  stake  in  such  a  ease,  or  whether  he  onirht  to 
stake  his  all,  is  a  question  not  easy  to  decide;  and  in  such  a  sharp  conflict 
between  personal  gratitude  and  public  duty,  there  will  always  be  differ- 
ences of  opinion. 

Much  the  same  is  to  be  said  touching  the  part  sustained  by  Bacon  after 
the  execution.  Kssex  was  something  of  a  favourite  with  the  people,  and 
his  fate  drew  forth  some  marks  of  popular  odium  against  the  Queen.  It 
was  deemed  necessary  to  vindicate  the  action  of  the  government,  and  to 


SKETCH  OF  HIS  LIFE.  557 

Bacon  was  assigned  the  task  of  drawing  up,  or  of  dressing  into  shape,  "A 
Declaration  of  the  Practices  and  Treasons  attempted  and  committed  by 
Robert  late  Earl  of  Essex,"  £c.,  which  was  published  in  1601.  His  instruc- 
tions for  the  writing  were  very  precise,  and  his  first  draft  was  submitted  to 
certain  councillors,  "  who  made  almost  a  new  writing,"  so  that  Bacon  him- 
self "  gave  only  words  and  form  of  style."  In  reference  to  this  paper  it  has 
been  said  that  "Bacon  "exerci>ed  his  literary  talents  to  blacken  the  Earl's 
memory."  But  it  does  not  appear  that  he  carried  the  blackening  process 
anv  further  than  a  fair  and  just  statement  of  the  case  would  have  that  effect. 
Soon  after  the  publication,  a  parliamentary  election  was  held,  and  Bacon 
was  returned  both  by  Ipswich  and  St.  Albans  ;  which  infers  that  he  had 
not  lost  ground  in  the  public  confidence.  Upon  the  whole,  that  Bacon  was 
enthusiastic  in  his  friendship,  probably  none  will  affirm.  But  then  neither 
was  he  bitter  in  his  enmities.  And  if  there  was  little  nobleness  of  soul, 
there  was  surely  nothing  of  malice,  in  his  composition.  In  his  treatment 
of  Essex  there  is  indeed  nothing  to  praise  ;  nor,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  there 
very  much  to  be  positively  blamed.  To  pronounce  him  "  the  meanest  of 
mankind,"  is  surely  going  too  far;  but  that  there  was  more  than  enough 
of  meanness  in  him,  must,  I  fear,  be  granted;  for  of  that  article  "  a  little 
more  than  a  little  is  by  much  too  much." 

The  death  of  the  Qiieen,  in  March,  1603,  and  the  accession  of  James  the 
First  made  no  considerable  change  in  Bacon's  prospects.  He  was  anxious 
to  be  knighted,  his  chief  reason  being,  "  because  1  have  found  out  an  alder- 
man's daughter,  an  handsome  maiden,  to  my  liking."  Accordingly,  in 
July  he  was  dubbed  a  knight  by  the  King;  but  it  was  rather  the.  reverse  of 
an  honour,  as  some  three  hundred  others  were  dubbed  at  the  same  time, 
lie  was  also  elected  to  the  new  Parliament,  both  at  Ipswich  and  St. 
Albans,  and  continued  to  take  a  very  prominent  part  in  the  business  of  the 
House.  In  August,  his  office,  as  one  of  the  learned  counsel,  was  confirmed 
to  him  by  patent,  together  with  a  pension  of  .€60  a  year.  In  May,  1606,  ho 
was  married  to  Alice  Barnham,  the  "  handsome  maiden"  already  men- 
tioned. She  was  the  daughter  of  a  London  merchant,  and  had  a  fortune  of 
£220  a-year,  which  was  settled  upon  herself,  with  an  addition  of  £500 
a-year  from  her  husband. 

'The  accession  of  King  James  naturally  drew  on  a  proposal  for  uniting 
the  two  kingdoms  of  Kngland  and  Scotland.  This  most  wise  measure  was 
strongly  opposed  by  many  of  the  English  ;  but  Bacon  supported  it  with  all 
the  weight  of  his  name  and  talents,  and  doubtless  thereby  recommended 
himself  not  a  little  to  the  King's  favour.  In  June,  1607,  he  attained  the 
long-sought  office  of  Solicitor-General ;  and  the  next  year  the  clerkship  of 
the  Star-Chamlx-r  became  vacant.  Bacon  had  waited  for  it  nearly  twenty 
years.  In  October,  161.'J,  the  place  of  Attorney-General  again  fell  vacant, 
and  Bacon  succeeded  to  it.  The  duties  of  this" office  brought  him  into  con- 
nection with  the  celebrated  case  of  1'caehrnan,  which  has  entailed  another 
blot  on  his  name.  Peachman  was  sin  aged  clergyman  who,  for  some  eccle- 
siastical offence,  had  been  cited  before  the  Court  of  High  Commission, 
and  deprived  of  his  orders.  Before  the  sentence,  his  house,  was  searched, 
and  an  unpublished  sermon  was  found,  which  was  allege;!  to  contain  trea- 
sonable matter.  Peachman  was  believed  to  have  accomplices,  and,  as  he 
would  not  reveal  them,  the  Council  resolved  on  putting  him  to  torture.  By 
the  common  law,  the  use  of  torture  for  extracting  evidence  was  deemed 
illegal  ;  but  such  use  was  held  to  be  justified  in  this  case  on  the  ground  of 
its  being  for  the  purpose  of  discovery,  and  not  of  evidence.  But  it  does 
not  appear  that  Bacon  was  at  all  responsible  for  this  outrage,  any  further 
than  that,  as  Attorney-General,  he  was  one  of  the  commission  appointed 
to  attend  the  examination  of  the,  prisoner.  And  his  letters  show  that  he 
aged  in  the,  affair  with  reluctance,  and  that  the  step  was  taken  against 
advice.  It  is  also  alleged  that,  to  procure  a  capital  sentence,  Bacon 


558  BACOX. 

tampered  with  the  judges  of  the  Kind's  Bench ;  but  as  the  case  was  not  to 

be  tried  by  any  of  those  judges,  it  does  not  well  appear  why  lie  should  have 
tampered  with  them  for  that  purpose.  In  August,  161">.  IVaehman  was 
tried  at  Taunton,  and  was  convicted  of  hi'uh  trea-ou  ;  hut  the  capital  sen- 
tence was  never  carried  out,  because  "  many  of  the  judges  were  of  opinion 
that  it  was  not  treason." 

In  June,  1616,  Bacon  was  made  a  member  of  the  Privy  Council,  and 
was  formally  congratulated  thereupon  bv  the  I" ui versify  of  Cambridge, 
which  he  then  represented  in  Parliament.  In  March,  1617,  Lord  Chan- 
cellor Ellesmere  resigned,  and  Bacon  was  appointed  Lord  Keeper  of  the 
(ireat  Seal.  A  week  later  the  Kin;:  set  out  for  Scotland,  leaving  his  new 
Lord  Keeper  at  the  head  of  the  Council,  to  manage  affairs  in  his  ah-eucc. 
In  January,  1618,  Sir  Francis  liccamc  Lord  Chancellor,  and  in  the  follow- 
ing July  was  raised  to  the  peerage  with  the  title  of  Baron  Vcrulam.  In  the 
•v\ork  of  Chancery,  his  energy  and  di-patch  were  something  prodigious. 
Within  three  mouths  after  he  became  Lord  Keeper,  lie  made  a  clean  sweep 
of  all  the  accumulated  cases  then  on  hand,  and  reported  that  there  was  not 
one  cause  remaining  unheard.  Seldom,  if  ever.  before,  had  the  work  of 
that  high  court  been  so  promptly  done,  or  done  more  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  public.  In  January,  1621.  Bacon  was  created  Viscount  of  St.  Albans, 
and  in  the  patent  of  promotion  was  particularly  commended  for  his  "  integ- 
rity in  the  administration  of  justice." 

rnfortunatelv,  during  this  period,  Bacon  could  not  make  headway  in 
political  life  without  paying  court  to  a  l)old,  insolent,  and  unscrupulous 
upstart.  England  had  a  weak  though  learned  Kinir.  and  that  King  was 
mainly  ffpveraed  by  a  greed  v  and  prodigal  favourite,  (Jeorgc  Viilicrs,  Duke 
of  Buckingham,  whom  James  had  raised  to  that  height  for  his  handsome 
]»erson  and  dashing  manners.  Buckingham  had  set  his  heart  upon  what 
was  called  "  the  Spanish  match, "that  is  the  marriage  of  Charles.  Prince  of 
Wales,  afterwards  King  Charles  the  First,  to  a  Spanish  Princess.  Bacon 
wisely  used  his  influence  wit-h  the.  King  against  that  match,  and  probably 
was  in  a  great  measure  the  means  of  defeating  it.  He  thereby  incurred  the 
re>entment  of  Buckingham,  though  he  had  socially  laid  himself  out  in 
wise  advice  to  him  :  and  he  stooped  to  very  unworthy  atonements  in  order 
to  appease  his  anger  and  regain  his  favour.  lint  IJuckingham  \ 
powerful  with  the  King,  and  he  greatly  abused  that  power,  to  the  oppression 
of  the  people  and  the  misgovern  men  t  of  the  kingdom.  In  his  need  and 
greed  and  vainglory,  he  availed  himself  of  whatever  twist  he  had  on  the 
too  supple  Chancellor,  and  doubtless  did  all  he  could  to  pervert  Justin-  in 
the  Chancery,  in  order  to  repair  the  waste  of  his  boundless  prodigality. 
Hence  Bacon  became  involved  in  practices  which  wrought  his  downfall, 
and  have  covered  his  name  with  dishonour. 

In  January,  1621,  three  days  after  Bacon's  last  promotion.  Parliament 
met,  and  was  not  in  a  mood  to  be  trifled  with.  A  few  days  later,  a  com- 
mittee was  appointed,  to  report  concerning  the  courts  of  justice.  Their 
report,  made  on  the  loth  of  March,  fell  like1  a  thunderclap  :  the  Lord 
Chancellor  was  charged  with  corruption  in  his  otliee,  and  instam  < 
alleged  in  proof.  Measures  were  forthwith  taken  tor  his  impeachment. 
Before  the  time  of  trial  came,  twenty-two  eases  of  bribery  were  drawn  up 
against  him.  Bacon,  sick  unto  death,  as  he  thought  himself,  felt  that  his 
enemies  had  closed  upon  him.  and  begged  only  a  fair  hearing,  that  lie  might 
give  them  an  ingenuous  answer.  To  the  Kini:  he  wrote  as  follows  :  "  For 
the  briberies  and  Drifts  wherewith  lam  charged,  when  the  books  of  hearts 
shall  be  opened.  1  hope  I  shall  not  be  found  to  have  the  troubled  fountain 
of  a  corrupt  heart,  in  a  depraved  habit  of  taking  rewards  to  pervert  justice  ; 
howsoever  I  may  be  frail,  and  partake  of  the  abuses  of  the  times.''  And  in 
his  answer  he  says, —  "  I  never  had  bribe  or  reward  in  my  eye  or  thought 
when  I  gave  sentence  or  order."  These,  to  be  sure,  are  substantially  tanta- 


SKETCH  OF  HIS   LIFE.  559 

mount  to  a  confession  of  the  matter  charged.  Nevertheless  he  was  for 
proceeding  with  his  defence,  but  from  this  the  King  and  Buckingham 

dissuaded  him  ;  for  what  cause,  or  hv  what  arguments,  is  not  known.  In- 
stead of  standing  trial,  he  wrote  to  the  Lords, —  "  ]  lind  matter  sufficient  and 
full,  both  to  move  me  to  desert  my  defence,  and  to  move  your  Lordships  to 
condemn  and  censure  me."  So,  on  the  3<)th  of  April,  his  full  confession 
was  read  before  the  Lords,  in  which  he  says, —  "I  do  plainly  and  ingenu- 
ously confess  that  I  am  guilty  of  corruption,  and  do  renounce  all  defence." 
One  of  the  charges  was,  that  he  had  given  way  to  great  exactions  by  his 
servants  ;  and  "  he  confessed  it  to  be  a  great  fault,  that  he  had  looked  no 
better  to  his  servants."  The  sentence  was.  a  tine  of  .€40.000,  imprisonment 
during  the  King's  pleasure,  incapability  of  holding  any  office  in  the  State, 
or  of  sitting  in  Parliament,  and  prohibition  to  come  within  the  verge  of  the 
Court.  His  own  comment  on  this  verdict  is,  "  I  was  the  justcst  judge  that 
was  in  England  these  fifty  years  ;  but  it  was  the  justest  censure  in  Parlia- 
ment that  was  these  two"  hundred  years."  The  severest  parts  of  the 
sentence  were  very  soon  remitted  ;  and  within  a  year  the  whole  was 
remitted,  and  also  a  pension  of  £1300  a-y ear  conferred  upon  him  by  the 
King. 

Such  is  the  upshot  of  this  sad  tale.  Still  it  does  not  appear,  nor  is  it 
alleged,  that  Bacon  took  bribes  for  the  perversion  of  justice.  During  his 
Chancellorship  he  made  orders  and  decrees  at  the  rate  of  two  thousand 
a-ycar.  Of  these  decrees  not  one  was  ever  set  aside.  None  of  his  judgments 
were  reversed.  Kven  those  who  first  charged  him  with  taking  money  ad- 
mitted that  he  decided  against  them.  The  truth  seems  to  be,  that  in*  this 
case  the  accumulated  faults  of  the  office  were  visited  on  the  individual  in- 
cumbent. Nor,  perhaps,  could  they  have  been  effectually  cured  hut  by  the, 
destruction  of  the  very  man  who  was  the  greatest  that  had  complied  with 
them  :  by  such  a  sacrifice,  they  might  indeed  become  so  unspeakably  odious, 
that  even  the  worst  men  would  take  care  to  shun  them.  The  Parliament 
was  hot  and  stout,  as  it  had  reason  to  be,  against  the  maladministration  of 
the  State.  lint  they  were  more  just  in  their  anger  than  discriminating  as 
to  its  object.*.  They  demanded  victims;  and  Bacon,  in  some  respects, 
would  be  a  most  acceptable  sacrifice,  since  the  very  height  whereon  he, 
stood  would  make  his  fall  the  more  exemplary.  Besides,  if  Parliament 
could  n:>t  get  at  the  Chancellor,  they  might  entertain  the  thought  of  strik- 
ing higher.  And  indeed  the  King  and  Buckingham  seem  to  have  been 
apprehensive  that  Bacon  might  triumph,  should  he  proceed  in  his  own 
defence,  (for  who  could  he  expected  to  withstand  so  potent  an  enchanter, 
mming  to  the  rescue  of  his  good  name?)  in  which  case  the  public  resent- 
ment, sharpened  by  defeat,  might  turn  to  other  objects,  and  demand  a 
dearer  sacrifice.  . 

Henceforth  Bacon  lived  in  strict  retirement,  and  gave  himself  up  unre- 
servedly to  labours  in  which  his  heart  was  at  home.  He  was  among  the 
-iimmoned  to  the  first  Parliament  of  Charles  the  First ;  but  he  did 
not  take  his  seat.  For  the  last  five  years  his  health  was  very  feeble,  and  lie 
was  constantly  looking  death  in  the  face.  At  last,  a  cold,  caught  in  an  ex- 
periment to  test  (lie  preserving  qualities  of  snow,  resulted  in  a  fever;  and, 
after  lingering  a  week,  he  died  on  the  morning  of  Faster-day,  April  9,  IG2G. 

If  Bacon's  political  life  was,  in  some  respects,  ignoble  and  f.ilse,  his  intel- 
lectual life  was  altogether  noble,  and  true,  and  has  perhaps  been  more 
fruitful  in  substantial  help  to  mankind  than  that  of  any  other  man.  The 
fir>t  instalment  of  his  y^w/y.s,  ten  in  number,  was  published  in  1597,  in  a 
small  volume,  which  also  contained  his  Colours  of  Good  and  Evil,  and  his 
MedttatioHet  Sacra.  Some  of  these  Essays  were  afterwards  enlarged,  and 
others  added  to  them  from  time,  to  time,  in  repeated  editions,  till  at  last, 
the.  whole  fifty-eight  appeared  together  in  l(>2f>.  In  1005,  was  published 
his  Advancement  of  Learning,  which  was  afterwards  recast,  enlarged,  trans- 


5GO  BACON. 

lated  into  Latin,  and  published  in  1023,  with  the  title  De  Augment**  Scien- 
tiarum.  In  1609,  his  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients  came  forth,  translated  into 
Latin.  His  Novum  Orptnum  made  its  appearance  in  the  Fall  of  1620. 
The  proper  English  of  this  title  is  The  N(iv  Instrummt;  hut  the  work  is 
occupied  with  setting  forth  what  is  known  as  the  Baconian,  that  is,  the 
Inductive  or  Experimental  Method  of  Scientific  Investigation.  It  was 
the  great  work  of  his  life,  and  so  he  regarded  it.  and  kept  toiling  at  it  for 
thirty  years.  The  object  of  the  work,  as  stated  by  himself,  was  to  "  enlarge 
the  bounds  of  reason  and  endow  man's  estate  with  new  value."  As  his 
plan  contemplated  a  much  larger  work,  of  which  this  was  but  a  part,  he 
gave,  as  his  reason  for  publishing  it,  that  he  felt  his  life  hastening  to  its 
close,  and  wished  that  portion  of  his  work  at  least  to  be  saved.  The  Xorum 
Onjannm  was  followed,  in  1622,  bv  his  History  of  Ifenry  the  Scccnth.  Be- 
sides these,  he  has  various  other  works,  lx>th  professional  and  philosophi- 
cal, but  which  my  space  does  not  permit  me  to  mention  in  detail. 

Bacon  appears  to  have  been  specially  inspired  with  the  faith,  that  a  true 
and  genuine  knowledge  of  Nature  would  arm  its  possessor  "itb  Nature's 
power,  by  enabling  him  to  harness  up  her  forces  and  put  them  to  work  for 
the  service  of  man.  To  this  faith  he  clung  with  a  tenacity  that  nothing 
could  relax.  And  so  strong  was  he  in  this  faith,  that  he  could  not  admit 
any  knowledge  of  Nature  to  be  real,  which  did  not  confer  such  power. 
Thus  in  his  view  power  is  the  test  and  measure  of  knowledge;  and  this  I 
take  to  be  the  true  sense  of  the  Baconian  axiom,  "knowledge  is  power." 
And  this  great  idea,  together  with  the  method  which  it  involves,  was  itself 
a  prophecy,  or  rather  the  seminal  principle,  of  all  the  stupendous  achieve- 
ments which  Science  has  since  made  in  the  mastery  of  Nature. 

I  quote  from  Sir  James  Mackintosh  :  "  That  in  which  Bacon  most  ex- 
celled all  other  men  was  the  range  and  compass  of  his  intellectual  view, 
and  the  power  of  contemplating  many  and  distant  objects  together  with- 
out indistinctness  or  confusion.  This  wide-ranging  intellect  was  illumi- 
nated by  the  brightest  Fancy  that  ever  contented  itself  with  the  office  of 
only  ministering  to  Reason  ;  and  from  this  singular  relation  of  the  two 
grand  faculties  of  man  it  has  resulted,  that  his  philosophy,  though  illus- 
trated still  more  than  adorned  by  the  utmost  splendour  of  imagery,  con- 
tinues still  subject  to  the  undivided  supremacy  of  Intellect.  In  the  midst 
of  all  the  prodigality  of  an  imagination  which,  had  it  been  independent, 
would  have  been  poetical,  his  opinions  remained  severely  rational. 

But,  with  all  his  greatness  and  beautv  of  intellect,"  Bacon  was  sadly 
wanting  in  moral  elevation.  In  his  position,  a  high  and  delicate  honour, 
the  sensitive  chastity  of  principle  which  feels  a  stain  as  a  wound,  was  es- 
pecially needful  for  his  safety  ;  but  it  evidently  had  no  ruling  place  in  his 
breast.  Still,  though  his  intellectual  merits  can  hardly  be  overdrawn,  it  is 
easy  to  overdraw  his  moral  defects.  He  was  not  only  greatly  admired  as  a 
thinker,  but  deeply  loved  and  honoured  as  a  man,  bv  manv  of  the  best  and 
purest  men  of  the  time;  which  could  hardlv  have  been  the  case  but  that, 
with  all  his  blemishes,  lie  had  great  moral  and  social  virtues.  Though 
often  straitened  for  means,  he  was  always  generous  to  his  servants  :  his 
temper  and  carriage  were  eminently  gentle  and  humane  :  he  was  never  ac- 
cused of  insolence  to  any  human  being,  which  is  the  common  pleasure  of 
mean-spirited  men  :  his  comlnci  in  Parliament  was  manly,  his  vi 
legislator  were  liberal,  and  leaning  strongly  towards  improvement  :  it  is 
not  pretended  that  he  ever  <;ave  an  unjust  or  illegal  judgment  as  Chancel- 
lor: his  private  life  was  blameless,  and  abounding  in  works  of  piety  and 
charity  :  atid  his  losing  the  favour  of  the  King  and  Buckingham,  when 
they  were  in  the  full  career  of  rapacity  and  corruption,  fairly  infers  him  to 
have  resisted  them  as  much  as  he  could  without  losing  the  power  to  resist 
them  at  all. 


FRANCIS     BACON. 


ESSAYS.* 


OF  TKUTH. 

"WHAT  is  truth?  "  said  jesting  Pilate,  and  would  not  stay  for 
an  answer.1  Certainly  there  be  that  delight  in  giddiness,  and 
count  it  a  bondage  to  fix  a  belief ;  affecting  free-will  in  think- 
ing, as  well  as  in  acting.  And  though  the  sects  of  philosophers 
of  that  kind  be  gone,  yet  there  remain  certain  discoursing2 
wits,  which  are  of  the  same  veins,  though  there  be  not  so  much 
blood  in  them  as  was  in  those  of  the  ancients.  But  it  is  not 
only  the  difficulty  and  labour  which  men  take  in  finding  out  of 
truth,  nor,  again,  that,  when  it  is  found,  it  imposeth  upon  nu-n's 
thoughts,  that  doth  bring  lies  in  favour;  but  a  natural  though 
corrupt  love  of  the  lie  itself.  One  of  the  later  schools  of  the 
Grecians  examineth  the  matter,  and  is  at  a  stand  to  think  what 
should  be  in  it,  that  men  should  love  lies,  where  neither  they 
make  for  pleasure,  as  with  poets,3  nor  for  advantage,  as  with 
the  merchant,  but  for  the  lie's  sake.  But  I  cannot  tell:  this 
same  truth  is  a  naked  and  open  daylight,  that  doth  not  show 
the  masques  and  mummeries  and  triumphs  of  the  world  half  so 
stately  and  daintily  as  candle-lights.  Truth  may  perhaps  come 
to  the  price  of  a  pearl,  that  showeth  best  by  day,  but  it  will  not 
rise  to  the  price  of  a  diamond  or  carbuncle,  that  showeth  best 

*  Bacon's  Essays  are  the  best-known  and  most  popular  of  all  his  works.  It  is 
also  one  of  those  where  the  superiority  of  his  genius  appears  to  the  greatest 
advantage;  the  novelty  and  depth  of  his  reflections  often  receiving  a  strong 
relief  from  the  triteness  of  the  subject.  It  may  be  read  from  beginning  to  end 
in  a  few  hours;  and  yet,  alter  the  twentieth  perusal,  one  seldom  fails  to  remark 
in  it  something  unobserved  before.  This  indeed  is  a  characteristic  of  all  Ba- 
con's writings,  and  only  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  inexhaustible  aliment  they 
furnish  to  our  own  thoughts,  and  the  sympathetic  activity  they  impart  to  our 
torpid  faculties.— DUUAI.I)  STEWART. 

1  Bacon,  I  think,  mistakes  here.    Pilate  seems  to  be  in  anything  but  a  jesting 
mood.    He  is  evidently  much  interested  in  the  Prisoner  before  him,  and  is  sur- 
prised, for  an  instant,  out  of  his  oflicial  propriety;  but  presently  bethinks  liim- 
M-lHhat  the  question  is  altogether  beside  his  oflicial  duty,  and  proceeds  at  once 
to  the  business  in  hand. 

2  Discoursing  in  the  sense  of  discursive  ;  that  is,  roving  or  unsettled. 

.'{  Baron  here  supposes  n  fiction  to  be  the  same  thing  as  a  lie.  But,  properly 
speaking,  poetry  is  antithetic,  not  to  truth,  but  to  matter  of  fact. 


562  BACON. 

in  varied  lights.  A  mixture  of  a  lie  doth  ever  add  pleasure. 
Doth  any  man  doubt  that,  if  there  were  taken  out  of  men's 
minds  vain  opinions,  flattering  hopes,  false  valuations,  imagi- 
nations as  one  would,  and  the  like,  it  would  leave  the  minds  of 
a  number  of  men  poor  shrunken  tilings,  full  of  melancholy  and 
indisposition,  and  unpleasing  to  themselves?  One  of  the  fa- 
thers, in  great  severity,  called  poesy  vinum  dwmonum,4  because  it 
lilleth  the  imagination,  and  yet  it  is  but  with  the  shadow  of  a 
lie.  But  it  is  not  the  lie  that  passeth  through  the  mind,  but  the 
lie  that  sinketh  in,  and  settleth  in  it,  that  doth  the  hurt,  such  as 
we  spake  of  before.  But  howsoever  these  things  are  thus  in 
men's  depraved  judgments  and  affections,  yet  truth,  which 
only  doth  judge  itself,  teaeheth,  that  the  inquiry  of  truth, 
which  is  the  love-making  or  wooing  of  it,  the  knowledge  of 
truth,  which  is  the  presence  of  it*  and  the  belief  of  truth,  which 
is  the  enjoying  of  it.  is  the  sovereign  good  of  human  nature. 
The  first  creature  of  (lod,  in  the  works  of  the  days,  was  the 
light  of  the  sense;  the  last  was  the  light  of  reason  :  and  His 
sabbath  work  ever  since  is  the  illumination  of  His  Spirit. 
First,  He  breathed  light  upon  the  face  of  the  matter,  or  chaos  ; 
then  He  breathed  light  into  the  face  of  man:  and  still  lie 
breatheth  and  inspireth  light  into  the  face  of  His  chosen.  The 
poet  that  beautified  the  sect,6  that  Avas  otherwise  inferior  to  the 
rest,  saith  yet  excellently  well:  "It  is  a  pleasure  to  stand 
upon  the  shore,  and  to  see  ships  tossed  upon  the  sea  ;  a  pleas- 
ure to  stand  in  the  window  of  a  castle,  and  to  see  a  battle,  and 
the  adventures  thereof  below:  but  no  pleasure  is  comparable 
to  the  standing  upon  the  vantage  ground  of  truth,"  (a  hill  not 
to  be  commanded,'1  and  where  the  air  is  always  dear  and 
serene,)  "and  to  see  the  errors  and  wanderings,  and  mists  and 
tempests,  in  the  vale  below:"7  so  always  that  this  prospect8  be 
with  pity,  and  not  with  swelling  or  pride.  Certainly  it  is 
J lea ven  upon  Earth  to  have  a  man's  mind  move  in  charity,  rest 
in  Providence,  and  turn  upon  the  poles  of  truth. 

4  "  The  wine  of  evil  spirits." 

5  The  allusion  is  to  Lucretius,  the  Roman  poet,  and  to  the  Epicurean  sect  of 
philosophers,  whose  doctrines  Lucretius  clothed  in  their  most  attractive  garb. 
Epicurus  himself  was  of  a  pure  and  blameless  life;  hut  his  leading  tenet  was 
that  the  chief  aim  of  all  philosophy  should  be  to  secure  health  of  body  and  tran- 
quillity of  mind.    The  using,  however,  of  the  term  pleasure,  to   express   tlii.s 
object,  has  at  all  times  exposed  the  system  to  reproach;  and,  in  fact,  the  name 
of  the  sect  has  too  often  serve. I  as  a  cloak  for  luxury  and  libertinism. 

6  That  is,  a  hill  having  no  hit/her  hill  in  its  neighbourhood.    So,  in  a  military 
sense,  a  higher  hill  commands  a  lower  one  standing  near  it. 

7  This  is  rather  a  paraphrase  than  a  translation  of  the   fine  passage   in 
Lucretius. 

8  Prospect  is  here  used  actively ;  that  is,  in  the  sense  of  overlooking  or  looking 
down  upon. 


OF   DEATH.  563 

To  pass  from  theological  and  philosophical  truth  to  the  truth 
of  civil  business:  It  will  be  acknowledged,  even  by  those  that 
practise  it  not,  that  clear  and  round9  dealing  is  the  honour  of 
mail's  nature,  and  that  mixture  of  falsehood  is  like  alloy  in  coin 
of  gold  and  silver,  which  may  make  the  metal  work  the  1  totter, 
but  it  embaseth  it.  For  these  winding  and  crooked  courses  are 
the  goings  of  the  serpent ;  which  goeth  basely  upon  the  belly, 
and  not  upon  the  feet.  There  is  no  vice  that  doth  so  cover  a 
man  with  shame  as  to  be  found  false'  and  perfidious:  and  there- 
fore Montaigne1  saith  prettily,  when  he  inquired  the  reason 
why  the  word  of  the  lie  should  be  such  a  disgrace  and  such  an 
odious  charge:  saith  he,  "If  it"  be  well  weighed,  to  say  that  a 
man  lieth,  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  he  is  brave  towards  (Jod 
and  a  coward  towards  men.  For  a  lie  faces  God,  and  shrinks 
from  man."  Surely  the  wickedness  of  falsehood  and  broach  of 
faith  cannot  possibly  be  so  highly  expressed,  as  in  that  it  shall 
be  the  last  peal  to  call  the  judgments  of  (iod  upon  the  gener- 
ations of  men;  it  being  foretold  that,  when  "Christ  cometh," 
He  shall  not  "find  faith  upon  the  Earth." 


OF  DEATH.2 

MKV  fear  death  as  children  fear  to  go  in  the  dark;  and  as 
that  natural  fear  in  children  is  increased  with  tales,  so  is  the 
other.  Certainly,  the  contemplation  of  death,  as  the  wages  of 
sin,  and  passage;  to  another  world,  is  holy  and  religious;  but 
the  fear  of  it,  as  a  tribute;  due  unto  Nature,  is  weak.  Yet  in 
religious  meditations  there  is  sometimes  mixture  of  vanity  and 
of  superstition.  You  shall  read  in  some  of  the  friars'  books  of 
mortification,  that,  a  man  should  think  with  himself  what  the 
pain  is,  if  he  have  but  his  finger's  end  pressed  or  tortured  ;  and 
thereby  imagine  what  the  pains  of  death  are,  when  the  whole 

f.)     I'ffihi,  (lirrrt,  dinrjirif/ht  arc  among  the  old  senses  of  round. 

1  Michael  dc  Montaigne,  the  celebrated   French   Kssayist.     His  Essays  cm- 

variety  of   topic*,  which  arc.  treated  in  a.  sprightly  and   entertaining 

manner,  and  arc  replete  with  remarks  indicative  of  strong  native  good  sense. 

!li-  died  in  IW.     The  quotation  is  from  the  second  hook  of  his  A'.S.SY///X  :  "  Lying 

i-  a  disgraceful  vice,  and  one  that   Plutarch,  an  ancient  writer,  paints  in  most 

••fnl  rohmr<,  when  he  says  that  it  is  '  affording  testimony  that  one  Jirxt 

(.oil,  and  then  fears  men.'  It  is  not  possible  more  happily  to  describe 
j;«  horrible,  disgusting,  and  abandoned  nature;  for  can  we  imagine  any  thing 
more  vile  than  to  be  cowards  with  ivgard  to  men,  and  brave  with  regard  to 

Qodf" 

2  A  portion  of  this  Essay  is  borrowed  from  the  writings  of  Seneca. 


5C4  BACON. 

body  is  corrupted  and  dissolved  ;  when  many  times  death  pnss- 
eth  with  less  pain  than  the  torture  of  a  limb  ;  for  the  most  vital 
parts  are  not  the  quickest  of  sense.  And  by  him  that  spake 
only  as  a  philosopher  and  natural  man,  it  was  well  said,  YV///>a 
mortis  magis  tcrret  quam  morn  (p.sa.8  Groans  and  convulsions, 
and  a  discoloured  face,  and  friends  weeping,  and  blacks4  and  ob- 
sequies, and  the  like,  show  death  terrible.  It  is  worthy  the 
observing,  that  there  is  no  passion  in  the  mind  of  man  so  weak 
but  it  mates5  and  masters  the  fear  of  death;  and  therefore 
death  is  no  such  terrible  enemy,  when  a  man  hath  so  many  at- 
tendants about  him  that  can  win  the  combat  of  him.  Kevenge 
triumphs  over  death  ;  love  slights  it  ;  honour  aspiivth  to  it; 
grief  flieth  to  it;  fear  preoccupatcth  '•  it  ;  nay,  we  read,  after 
Othothe  emperor  had  slain  himself,  pity  (which  is  the  t  -uderest 
of  affections)  provoked  many  to  die  out  of  mere  compassion  to 
their  sovereign,  and  as  the  truest  sort  of  followers.  May,  Sen- 
eca adds,  niceiiess  and  satiety:  i.'injlld  ijiimmlt'ti  unhm  j 
muri  i'cll<\  nun  taittum jfortff  <ni4  mi*  r,  sed  etiamfastidtostu  j><>((.^i.' 
A  man  would  die,  though  he  were  neither  valiant  nor  miserable, 
only  upon  a  weariness  to  do  the  same  thing  so  oft  over  and  over. 
It  is  no  less  worthy  to  observe,  how  little  alteration  in  good 
spirits  the  approaches  of  death  make  ;  for  the\  appear  to  be1  the 
same  men  till  the  last  instant.  Augustus  C'a-sar  died  in  a  com- 
pliment:  J,iri<i,  <-<mjtnjii  nnstri  niunor,  r/n  <(  vale:6  Tiberius  in 
dissimulation,  as  Tacitus  saith  of  him:  J<ti,i  Tihirium  *•//•<*  <t 
cwjiu*,  non  iliKKimnlatin,  <Uscrt  l/vat :'•'  \"es))asian  in  a  jest,  sitting 
upon  a  stool:  Utputo,  Deu*f«>:]  Galba  with  a  sentence,  7- '</•/,  ni  i\c 
resit  populi  lioniani,-  holding  forth  his  neck:  Septimus  Severu.s 
in  despatch  :  Adestc,  si  quid  rnilti  rental  wfunhtm  ;•'  and  the  like. 
Certainly  the  Stoics  bestowed  too  much  cost  upon  death,  and  by 
their  great  preparations  made  it  appear  more  fearful.  Better 

3  "  The  array  of  the  death-bed  has  more  terrors  than  death  itself."    This 
quotation  is  from  Seneca. 

4  He  probably  alludes  to  the  custom  of  hanging  the  room  with  black  where 
the  body  of  the  deceased  lay;  a  practice  usual  in  IJ.icoifs  time. 

5  To  mute,  or  to  innate,  is  t<>  orn-ptuct'r,  to  subdue.     So  in  Macbeth,  v.,  !  :  "  My 
mind  she  has  mated,  and  amaxcd  my  sight." 

6  Preoccupate  in  the  Latin  sense  \>l' anticipate. 

7  "lleflert  how  often  you  do  the  same  tilings:  a  man  may  wish  to  die,  not 
only  because  he  is  either  brave  or  wretched,  but  even  because  lie  is  surleited 
with  lite." 

8  "Li via,  mindful  of  our  union,  live  on,  and  tare  thee  well." 

9  "  His  bodily  strength  and  vitality  were  now  forsaking  Tiberius,  but  not  his 
duplicity." 

1  "I  am  growing  into  a  god,  I  reckon."    This  was  said  as  a  rebuke  of  his 
flatterers,  as  in  the  well-known  ease  of  Canute  reproving  his  courtiers. 

2  "  Strike,  if  it  will  do  the  Uoman  people  any  good.'' 

3  "  Be  quick,  if  there  remains  any  thing  for  me  to  do." 


OF   UNITY  IN  RELIGION.  565 

saith  he,  quifincm  vitce  extremum  inter  munera  ponit  naturce.*  It 
is  as  natural  to  die  as  to  be  born  ;  and  to  a  little  infant  perhaps 
the  one  is  as  painful  as  the  other.  He  that  dies  in  an  earnest 
pursuit  is  like  one  that  is  wounded  in  hot  blood  ;  who,  for  the 
time,  scarce  feels  the  hurt;  and  therefore  a  mind  fixed  and 
bent  upon  somewhat  that  is  good  doth  avert  the  dolours  of 
death  :  but,  above  all,  believe  it,  the  sweetest  canticle  is  Nunc 
dimittis,  when  a  man  hath  obtained  worthy  ends  and  expecta- 
tions. Death  hath  this  also,  that  it  openeth  the  gate  to  good 
fame,  and  extinguisheth  envy  :  Extinctus  amaUtur  idem.6 


OF  UNITY  IN  KELIGION. 

KELIGION  being  the  chief  band  of  human  society,  it  is  a  happy 
thing  whon  itself  is  well  contained  within  the  true  band  of 
unity.  The  quarrels  and  divisions  about  religion  were  evils  un- 
known to  the  heathen.  The  reason  was,  because  the  religion 
of  the  heathen  consisted  rather  in  rites  and  ceremonies  than  in 
any  constant  belief;  for  you  may  imagine  what  kind  of  faith 
theirs  was,  when  the  chief  doctors  and  fathers  of  their  church 
were  the  poets.  JJut  the  true  God  hath  this  attribute,  that  He 
is  a  jealous  God;  and  therefore  His  worship  and  religion  will 
endure  no  mixture  nor  partner.  We  shall  therefore  speak  a 
few  words  concerning  the  unity  of  the  Church:  what  are  the 
fruits  thereof;  what  the  bounds  ;  and  what  the  means. 

The  fruits  of  unity  (next  unto  the  well-pleasing  of  God,  which 
is  all  in  all)  are  two  ;  the  one  towards  those  that  are  without  the 
Church,  the  other  towards  those  that  are  within.  For  the 
former,  it  is  certain  that  heresies  and  schisms  are  of  all  others 
the  greatest  scandals ;  yea,  more  than  corruption  of  manners : 
for  as  in  the  natural  body  a  wound  or  solution  of  continuity6  is 
than  a  corrupt  humour,  so  in  the  spiritual.  So  that  noth- 
ing doth  so  much  keep  men  out  of  the  Church,  and  drive  men 
out  of  the  Church,  as  breach  of  unity:  and  therefore,  whenso- 
ever it,  comet h  to  that  pass  that  one  saith,  Ecce  in  Dcscrto,7  an- 
other saith,  Ecce  in  penetralibus  ;8  that  is,  when  some  men  seek 

4  "  Who  regards  death  as  one  of  Nature's  boons."    The  passage  is  quoted, 
but  with  some,  inarr.m-ary,  1'roiu  Juvenal. 

5  "  The  same  man  will  be  loved  when  dead." 

6  A  solut  ion  <>r  continuity  is,  for  instance,  a  severing  of  a  muscle  or  a  sinew 
by  a  trans  vei'su  rut. 

7  "  Behold,  he  is  in  the  desert." 

8  "  Behold,  he  is  in  the  secret  chambers." 


506  BACO^. 

Christ  in  the  conventicles  of  heretics,  and  others  in  an  outward 
face  of  a  church  ;  that  voice  had  need  continually  to  sound  in 
men's  ears,  nolite  exire,  "go  not  out."  The  Doctor  of  the  Gen- 
tiles (the  propriety  of  whose  vocation  °  drew  him  to  h:i 
cial  care  of  those  without)  saith,  "  If  a  heathen  come  in,  and  hear 
you  speak  with  several  tongues,  will  he  not  say  that  you  arc 
mad?"  and,  certainly,  it  is  little  better.  When  atheists  and 
profane  persons  do  hear  of  so  many  discordant  and  contrary 
opinions  in  religion,  it  doth  avert1  them  from  the  Church,  and 
maketh  them  "to  sit,  down  in  the  chair  of  the  scnrners." 

It  is  but  a  light  thing  to  be  vouched  in  so  serious  a  matter,  but 
yet  it  expresseth  well  the  deformity:  there  is  a  master  of  scof- 
fing,2 that  in  his  catalogue  of  books  of  afeigned  library  sets  down 
this  title  of  a  book,  The  Morris-Dunce  oj  1I<  /v//ot.-:|  for,  indeed, 
every  sect  of  them  hath  a  diverse  posture,  or  cringe,  by  them- 
selves, which  cannot  but  move  derision  in  worldlings  and 
depraved  politics,4  who  are  apt  to  contemn  holy  tin: 

As  for  the  fruit  towards  those  that  are  within,  it  is  peace, 
which  containeth  infinite  blessings:  it  estal>li>heth  faith;  it 
kindleth  charity;  the  outward  peace,  of  the  Church  distilloth 
into  peace  of  conscience,  and  it  turneth  the  labours  of  writing 
and  reading  of  controversies  into  treatises  of  mortification  and 
devotion. 

Concerning  the  bounds  of  unity,  the  true  placing  of  them  im- 
porteth  exceedingly.5  There  appear  to  bo  two  extremes  ;  i'or  to 
certain  zealots  all  speech  of  pacification  is  odious.  "Is  it  peace, 
Jehu  ?  "  "  What  hast  thou  to  do  with  peace  V  turn  thee  behind 
me."  Peace  is  not  the  matter,0  but  following  and  party.  Contra- 
riwise, certain  Laodiceans  and  lukewarm  persons  think  they  may 
accommodate  points  of  religion,  by  middle  ways,  and  taking  part 
of  both,  and  witty7  reconcilements,  as  if  they  would  make  an  ar- 
bitrement  between  God  and  man.  Both  these  extremes  are  to 
be  avoided ;  which  will  be  done  if  the  league  of  Christians, 
penned  by  our  Saviour  himself,  were  in  the  two  cross  clauses 
thereof  soundly  and  plainly  expounded:  "lie  that  is  not  with 

9    That  is,  the  peculiar  nature  of  whose  calling. 

1  Avert  in  the  Latin  sense  of  turn  away,  or  repel. 

2  The  allusion  is  to  Rabelais,  the  jjreat  French  humovi>t- 

3  Tin's  dance,  which  was  originally  called  the  Morisco  dance,  is  supposed  to 
have  been  derived  from  the  Moors  of  Spain;  the  dancers  in  earlier  times  black- 
eninjr  their  laces  to  resemble  Moors.     It  was  probably  a.  corruption  of  the  an- 
cient Pyrrhic,  dance,  which  was  performed  by  men  in  armour. 

4  Politii  .s-  was  often  used  \'or  politicians. 

5  To  import  e.co'edinyty  is  to  be  of  the  utmost  importance. 

6  That  is,  peaee  is  not  what  they  ic<rnt. 

1  Here  witty  is  ingenious;  and  to '« accommodate  points"  is  to  harmonize 
differences. 


OF  UNITY  IK  RELIGION.  567 

us  is  against  us  ";  and  again,  "He  that  is  not  against  us  is  with 
us";  that  is,  if  the  points  fundamental,  and  of  substance  in  re- 
ligion, were  truly  discerned,  and  distinguished  from  points  not 
merely8  of  faith,  but  of  opinion,  order,  or  good  intention.  This 
is  a  thing  may  seem  to  many  a  matter  trivial,  and  done  already; 
but  if  it  were  done  less  partially,  it  would  be  embraced  more 
generally. 

Of  this  I  may  give  only  this  advice,  according  to  my  small 
model.  Men  ought  to  take  heed  of  rending  God's  Church  by 
two  kinds  of  controversies:  the  one  is,  when  the  matter  of  the 
point  controverted  is  too  small  and  light,  not  worth  the  heat 
and  strife  about  it,  kindled  only  by  contradiction  ;  for,  as  it  is 
noted  by  one  of  the  fathers,  Christ's  coat  indeed  had  no  seam, 
but  the  Church's  vesture  was  of  divers  colours ;  whereupon  ho 
saith.  In  veste  varietas  sit,  sdssura  non  sit,9 — they  be  two  things, 
unity  and  uniformity:  the  other  is,  when  the  matter  of  the 
point  controverted  is  great,  but  it  is  driven  to  an  over  great 
subtilty  and  obscurity,  so  that  it  becometh  a  thing  rather 
ingenious  than  substantial.  A  man  that  is  of  judgment  and 
understanding  shall  sometimes  hear  ignorant  men  differ,  and 
know  well  within  himself  that  those  which  so  differ  mean  one 
thing,  and  yet  they  themselves  would  never  agree:  and  if  it 
come  so  to  pass  in  that  distance  of  judgment  which  is  between 
man  and  man,  shall  we  think  that  God  above,  that  knows  the 
heart.,  doth  not  discern  that  frail  men,  in  some  of  their  con- 
tradictions, intend  the  same  thing,  and  accepteth  of  both? 
The  nature  of  such  controversies  is  excellently  expressed  by 
St.  Paul,  in  the  warning  and  precept  that  he  giveth  concern  ing 
the  same:  Devita  prof  anas  vocum  novitates,  et  oppositiones  falsi 
nominis  scientioe.1  Men  create  oppositions  which  are  not,  and 
put  them  into  new  terms  so  fixed  as,2  whereas  the  meaning 
ought  to  govern  the  term,  the  term  in  effect  governeth  tho 
meaning.  There  be  also  two  false  peaces,  or  unities:  the  one, 
when  the  peace  is  grounded  but  upon  an  implicit  ignorance ; 
for  all  colours  will  agree  in  the  dark:  the  other,  when  it  is 
pieced  up  upon  a  direct  admission  of  contraries  in  fundamental 
points  ;  for  truth  and  falsehood  in  such  things  are  like  the  iron3 

8  Merely  in  the  sense  of  purely,  absolutely  ;  like  the  Latin  merus.  So  in  Ham- 
I't ,  i.,  'J  :  "  Tilings  rank  and  gross  in  nature  possess  it  merely." 

'.>  "  In  the  garment  there  may  be  many  colours,  but  let  there  be  no  rending 
of  it." 

1  "Avoid  profane  and  vain  babblings,  and  oppositions  of  science  falsely  so 
called." 

2  In  all  such  cases,  Bacon  uses  as  and  that  indiscriminately. 

3  Alluding  to  Nebuchadnezzar's  dream,  which  signified  the  short  duration  of 
his  kingdom.    Sec  Daniel,  ii.,  33. 


5G8  BACON. 

and  clay  in  the  toes  of  Xebuchadnezzar's  image ;  they  may 
cleave,  but  they  will  not  incorporate. 

Concerning  the  means  of  procuring  unity,  men  must  be .waro 
that,  in  the  procuring  or  muniting4  of  religious  unity,  they  do 
not  dissolve  and  deface  the  laws  of  charity  and  of  human 
society.  There  be  two  swords  amongst  Christians,  the  spiritual 
and  temporal,  and  both  have  their  due  office  and  place  in  the 
maintenance  of  religion:  but  we  may  not  take  up  the  third 
sword,  which  is  Mahomet's  sword,  or  like  unto  it;  that  is,  to 
propagate  religion  by  wars,  or  by  sanguinary  persecutions  to 
force  consciences;  except  it  be  "in  cases  of  overt  scandal,  blas- 
phemy, or  intermixture  of  practice  against  the  State:  much 
less  to  nourish  seditions;  to  authorize  conspiracies  and  rebel- 
lions; to  put  the  sword  into  the  people'-  hands,  and  the  like, 
tending  to  the.  subversion  of  all  government,  which  is  the  ordi- 
nance of  (iod:  for  this  is  but  to  dash  the  lirst  table  against  the, 
second;  and  so  to  consider  men  as  Christians,  as  we  forget  that 
they  are  men.  Lucretius  the  poet,  when  he  beheld  the  act  of 
Agamemnon,  that  could  endure  the  sacrificing  of  his  own 
daughter,  exclaimed,  Tantum  rcliyio  potuit  mnnhi-c  innlnruin." 
AVhat  would  he  have  said,  if  he  had  known  of  the  massacre  in 
France,6  or  the  powder  treason  of  England  V7  lie  would  have 
been  seven  times  more  Epicure  and  atheist  than  he  was  ;  for  as 
the  temporal  sword  is  to  be  drawn  with  great  circumspection  in 
cases  of  religion,  so  it  is  a  thing  monstrous  to  put  it  into  the 
hands  of  the  common  people;  let  that  be  left  unto  the  Ana- 
baptists8 and  other  furies.  It  was  great  blasphemy,  when  the 
Devil  said,  "I  will  ascend  and  be  like  the  Highest";  but  it  is 
greater  blasphemy  to  personate  (iod,  and  bring  Him  in  saying, 
"I  will  descend,  and  be  like  the  prince  of  darkness";  and  what 

4  Muniting  is  fortifying  or  strengthening. 

5  "To  deeds  so  dreadful  could  religion  prompt."    The  poet  refers  to  Aga- 
memnon's  sacrifice  of  his  daughter  Iphigenia,  with   the  view  of  appeasing  tho 
wrath  of  Diana. 

G  He  alludes  to  the  massacre  of  the  Huguenots,  in  France,  which  took  place 
on  Si,  Uartholomew's  day,  August  -21,  107-,  by  the  order  of  Charles  IX.  and  his 
mother,  Catherine  de  Medici. 

7  More  generally  known  as  "  the  Gunpowder  Plot." 

8  A  set  of  desperate  lunatics  who  appeared  at  Minister  about  I.V.O.     .Winn- 
ing a  special  and  conscious  indwelling  of  the  Holy  (.Jhost,  they  of  OOU 
themselves  above  all  law,  and  often  plunged  into  the  grossest  sensual!: 
cruelties.    Hooker  aptly  says  of  them,  "  what  strange  fantastical  opinion  Boevct 
at  any  time  entered  into  their  heads,  their  use  was  to  think  the  Spirit  taught  it 
them."    And  again:  "These  men,  in  whose  mouths  at  the  lirst  sounded  noth- 
ing but  only  mortification  of  the  llesh,  were  come  at  the  length  to  think  they 
might  lawfully  have  their  six  or  seven  wives  apiece;  they  which  at  the  first 
thought  judgment  and  justice  itself  to  lip  merciless  cruelty,  accounted  at  tho 
length  their  own  hands  sanctified  with  being  embrued  in  Christian  blood." 


OF  REVENGE.  569 

is  it  better,  to  make  the  cause  of  religion  to  descend  to  the 
cruel  and  execrable  actions  of  murdering  princes,  butchery  of 
people,  and  subversion  of  States  and  governments?  Surely 
this  is  to  bring  down  the  Holy  Ghost,  instead  of  the  likeness  of 
a  dove,  in  the  shape  of  a  vulture  or  raven ;  and  to  set  out  of 
the  bark  of  a  Christian  church  a  flag  of  a  bark  of  pirates  and 
:ns:  therefore  it  is  most  necessary  that  the  Church  by 
doctrine  and  decree,  princes  by  their  sword,  and  all  learnings, 
both  Christian  and  moral,  as  by  their  Mercury  rod,9  do  damn, 
and  send  to  Hell  for  ever  those  facts  and  opinions  tending  to 
the  support  of  the  same ;  as  hath  been  already  in  good  part 
done.  Surely,  in  councils  concerning  religion,  that  counsel  of 
the  Apostle  would  be  prefixed,  Ira  hominis  non  implet  justi- 
tiam  Dei;1  and  it  was  a  notable  observation  of  a  wise  father, 
and  no  less  ingenuously  confessed,  that  those  which  held  and 
persuaded  pressure  of  consciences  were  commonly  interested 
therein  themselves  for  their  own  ends. 


OF  REVENGE. 

REVENGE  is  a  kind  of  wild  justice,  which  the  more  Man's  na- 
ture runs  to,  the  more  ought  law  to  weed  it  out :  for,  as  for  the 
iirst  wrong,  it  doth  but  offend  the  law,  but  the  revenge  of  that 
wrung  puttetUtlie  law  out  of  oflice.  Certainly,  in  taking  revenge, 
a  man  is  but  even  with  his  enemy,  but  in  passing  it  over  he  is 
superior  ;  for  it  is  a  prince's  part  to  pardon:  and  Solomon,  I  am 
sure,  saith,  "It  is  the  glory  of  a  man  to  pass  by  an  offence." 
That  which  is  past  is  gone  and  irrevocable,  and  wise  men  have 
enough  to  do  with  things  present  and  to  come;  therefore  they 
do  I  nit  t  rifle  with  themselves  that  labour  in  past  matters.  There 
is  no  man  dotli  a  wrong  for  the  wrong's  sake,  but  thereby  to 
purchase  himself  profit,  or  pleasure,  or  honour,  or  the  like; 
therefore  why  should  I  be  angry  with  a  man  for  loving  himself 
than  me  V  And  if  any  man  should  do  wrong  merely  out 
of  ill-nature,  why,  yet  it  is  but  like  the  thorn  or  briar,  which 
prick  and  scratch  because  they  can  do  no  other.  The  most  tol- 
erable sort  of  revenge  is  for  those  wrongs  which  there  is  no  law 
to  remedy;  but  then  let  a  man  take  hoed  the  revenge  be  such  as 

'J  Alluding  to  the  cadiiceus,  with  which  Mercury,  the  messenger  of  the  gods, 
Biiniinoned  the  s.'ml.s  of  the  departed  (<>  the  infernal  regions. 

I  "  The  wrath  (>!'  man  worketh  not  tho  righteousness  of  <;<>d."  Observe  that 
voitlfi  here  has  the  sense  of  »l«nil<l.  The  au.viliariea  could,  should,  and  would 
were  often  used  indiscriminately  in  Bacon's  time. 


570  BACON". 

there  is  no  law  to  punish,  else  a  man's  enemy  is  still  beforehand, 
and  it  is  two  for  one.'  Some,  when  they  take  revenue,  are  desir- 
ous the  party  should  know  whence  it  comcth:  this  is  the  more 
generous;  for  the  delight  seemeth  to  be  not  so  much  in  doing 
the  hurt  as  in  making  the  party  repent:  but  base  and  crafty 
cowards  are  like  the  arrow  that  flieth  in  the  dark.  Cosmus, 
Duke  of  Florence,-  had  a  desperate  saying  against  perfidious  or 
neglecting  friends,  as  if  those  wrongs  were  unpardonable.  "  You 
shall  read,"  saith  he,  "that  we  are  commanded  to  forgive  our 
enemies;  but  you  never  read  that  we  are  commanded  to  forgive 
our  friends."  But  yet  the  spirit  of  Job  was  in  a  better  tune: 
"Shall  we,"  saith  he,  "take  good  at  God's  hands,  and  not  be 
content  to  take  evil  also?"  and  so  of  friends  in  a  proportion. 
This  is  certain,  that  a  man  that  studieth  revenge  keeps  his  own 
wounds  green,  which  otherwise  would  heal  and  do  well.  Public 
revenges3  are  for  the  most  part  fortunate;  as  that  for  the  death 
of  Ca>sar;4  for  the  death  of  Tertinax;  for  the  death  of  Henry 
the  Third  of  France; 6  and  many  more.  But  in  private  revenges 
it  is  not  so;  nay,  rather  vindictive  persons  live  the  life  of  witches; 
who,  as  they  are  mischievous,  so  end  they  unfortunate.6 


OF  ADVERSITY. 

IT  was  a  high  speech  of  Seneca,  (after  the  manner  of  the 
Stoics),  that  "the  good  things  which  belong  to  prosperity  are  to 
bo  wished,  but  the  good  things  that  belong  to  adversity  are  to 
be  admired," — 13ona  rerum  sccunclanim  optabilia,  advwtaman  ////- 
rabilia.  Certainly,  if  miracles  be  the  command  over  Nature, 
they  appear  most  in  adversity.  It  is  yet  a  higher  speech  of  his 
than  the  other,  (much  too  high  for  a  heathen,)  "It  is  true  great- 
ness to  have  in  one  the  fraility  of  a  man,  and  the  security  of  a 

2  The  allusion  is  to  Cosmo  de  Medici,  chief  of  the  Florentine  republic,  ami 
much  distinguished  as  an  encourager  of  literature  ami  art. 

3  l.y  "  public  revenges,"  he  means  punishment  awarded  by  the  State  with  the 
sanction  of  the  laws. 

4  He  alludes  to  the  retribution  dealt  by  Augustus  and  Antony  to  the  mur- 
derers of  Julius  Caesar.    It  is  related  by  ancient  historians,  as  a  singular  fact, 
that  not  one  of  them  died  a  natural  death. 

5  Henry  HI.  of  France  was  assassinated  in  15i)fl  by  Jacques  Clement,  a  Jaco- 
bin monk,  in  the  frenzy  of  fanaticism.    Although  Clement  justly  suffered  pun- 
ishment, the  end  of  this  bloodthirsty  and  bigoted  tyrant  may  be  justly  deemed 
ii  retribution  dealt  by  the  hand  of  an  offended  Providence. 

0    For  some  excellent  remarks  on  the  subject  of  this  K-  passage 

from  Burke,  page  320  of  this  volume. 


OF  ADVERSITY.  571 

god," — Vere  magnum  habere  fragilitatem  Jiominis,  securitatem  dei. 
This  would  have  done  better  in  poesy,  where  transcendencies 
are  more  allowed ;  and  the  poets  indeed  have  been  busy  with 
it;  for  it  is  in  effect  the  thing  which  is  figured  in  that  strange 
fiction  of  the  ancient  poets,  which  seeraeth  not  to  be  without 
mystery;7  nay,  and  to  have  some  approach  to  the  state  of  a 
Christian;  "that  Hercules,  when  he  went  to  unbind  Prome- 
theus, (by  whom  human  nature  is  represented,)  sailed  the  length 
of  the  great  ocean  in  an  earthen  pot  or  pitcher,"  lively  describing 
Christian  resolution,  that  saileth  in  the  frail  bark  of  the  flesh 
through  the  waves  of  the  world.  But,  to  speak  in  a  mean.8  the 
virtue  of  prosperity  is  temperance,  the  virtue  of  adversity  is 
fortitude,  which  in  morals  is  the  more  heroical  virtue.  Pros- 
perity is  the  blessing  of  the  Old  Testament,  adversity  is  the 
btaning  of  the  New,  which  carrieth  the  greater  benediction,  and 
the  clearer  revelation  of  God's  favour.  Yet,  even  in  the  Old 
Testament,  if  you  listen  to  David's  harp,  you  shall  hear  as 
many  hoarse-like  airs9  as  carols;  and  the  pencil  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  hath  laboured  more  in  describing  the  afflictions  of  Job 
than  the  felicities  of  Solomon.  Prosperity  is  not  without  many 
fears  and  distastes  ;  and  adversity  is  not  without  comforts  and 
hopes.  We  see  in  needleworks  and  embroideries,  it  is  more 
pleasing  to  have  a  lively  work  upon  a  sad  and  solemn  ground, 
than  to  have  a  dark  and  melancholy  work  upon  a  lightsome 
gr  >iind  :  judge,  therefore,  of  the  pleasure  of  the  heart  by  the 
pleasure  of  the  eye.  Certainly  virtue  is  like  precious  odours, 
fragrant  when  they  are  incensed,1  or  crushed :  for  pros- 
pority  doth  best  discover  vice,  but  adversity  doth  best  discover 
virtue. 

7  Mystery,  here  is  secret  meaning  ;  like  the  hidden  moral  of  a  fable  or  myth. 

8  "  Speaking  in  a  mean  "  is  speaking  with  moderation.    So  in  one  of  Words- 
•worth'rf  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets  :  "  The  golden  mean  and  quiet  flow  of  truths  that 
gollen  hatred,  temper  strife." 

0  Funereal  airs.    It  must  be  remembered  that  many  of  the  Psalms  of  David 
•\vcro  written  by  him  when  persecuted  by  Saul,  as  also  in  the  tribulation  caused 
by  the  uickc.l  conducl  «»f  his  son  Absalom.    Some  of  them,  too,  though  called 
'•  Th<:  Psalms  of  David,"  were  really  composed  by  the  Jews  in  their  captivity  at 
IJahylon;  as,  for  instance,  the  137th  Psalm,  which  so  beautifully  commences, 
41  Uy  the  waters  of  JJahylon  there  we  sat  down."    One  of  them  is  supposed  to 
be  the  composition  of  Moses. 

1  Incensed  is  set  on  fire  or  burned. 


572  BACOtf. 


OF  PARENTS  AND  CHILDREN. 

THE  joys  of  parents  are  secret,  and  so  are  their  griefs  and 
fears ;  they  cannot  utter  the  one,  nor  they  will  not  utter  the 
other.  Children  sweeten  labours,  but  they  make  misfortunes 
more  bitter  ;  they  increase  the  cares  of  life,  but  they  mitigate 
the  remembrance  of  death.  The  perpetuity  by  generation  is 
common  to  beasts;  but  memory,  merit,  and  noble  works  are 
proper  to  men.  And  surely  a  man  shall  see  the  noblest  works 
and  foundations  -  have  proceeded  from  childless  men,  which 
have  sought  to  express  the  images  of  their  minds  where  those  of 
their  bodies  have  failed:  so  the  care  of  posterity  is  most  in  them 
that  have  no  posterity.  They  that  are  the  first  raisers  of  their 
Houses  are  most  indulgent  towards  their  children,  In-holding 
them  as  the  continuance,  not  only  of  their  kind,  but  of  their 
work  ;  and  so  both  children  and  creatures. 

The  difference  in  affection  of  parents  towards  their  several 
children  is  many  times  unequal,  and  sometimes  unworthy,  es- 
pecially in  the  mother ;  as  Solomon  saith,  "A  wise  son  rejoiceth 
the  father,  but  an  ungracious  son  shames  the  mother."  A  man 
shall  see,  where  there  is  a  house  full  of  children,  one  or  two  of 
the  eldest  respected,  and  the  youngest  made  wantons  ; 3  but  in 
the  midst  some  that  are  as  it  were  forgotten,  who,  many  times, 
nevertheless,  prove  the  best.  The  illiberality  of  parents,  in 
allowance  towards  their  children,  is  a  harmful  error,  makes  them 
base,  acquaints  them  with  shifts,  makes  them  sort4  with  mean 
company,  and  makes  them  surfeit  more  when  they  come  to 
plenty:  and  therefore  the  proof  is  best5  when  men  keep  their 
authority  towards  their  children,  but  not  their  purse.  Men 
have  a  foolish  manner  (both  parents  and  schoolmasters  and  ser- 
vants) in  creating  and  breeding  an  emulation  between  brothers 
during  childhood,  which  many  times  sorteth6to  discord  when 
they  are  men,  and  disturbeth  families.7  The  Italians  make  little 

2    Foundations,  as  the  word  is  here  used,  are  institutions  or  establishments, 

such  as  hospitals  and  other  charitable'  endowments. 
,'J    That  is,  petted  into  self-indulgent  and  petulant  triflers. 

4  Sort  is  contort,  or  associate.    So  in  Hamlet,  ii.,  -2  :  "  I  will  not  sort  you  with 
tin-  ivst  of  my  servants." 

5  Proof  is  sometimes  equivalent  to  fact,  instance,  or  result.    IJere  "  the  proof 
is  best"  means  it  proves,  or  turns  out,  best.    So  in  Julius  Or.var,  ii.,  1 : 
common  proof  that  lowliness  is  young  ambi:  ion's  ladder." 

6  Sometimes  to  sort  is  to  fall  out,  to  happen,  to  come.    So  in  Much  Ado  about 
Nothing,  v.,  4 :  "  I  am  glad  that  all  things  sort  so  well." 

7  There  is  much  justice  in  this  remark.     Children   should  be  (aught  to  do 
what  is  right  for  its  own  sake,  and  because  it  is  their  duty  to  do  so,  and  not  that 
they  may  have  the  sclllsh  gratification  of  obtaining  the  reward  which  their  com- 


OF  MARRIAGE  AtfD   SINGLE  LIFE.  573 

difference  between  children  and  nephews,  or  near  kinsfolk  ;  but, 
so  they  be  of  the  lump,  they  care  not,  though  they  pass  not 
through  their  own  body;  and,  to  say  truth,  in  nature  it  is  much 
a  like  matter ;  insomuch  that  we  see  a  nephew  sometimes  resem- 
bleth  an  uncle  or  a  kinsman  more  than  his  own  parent,  as  the 
blood  happens.  Let  parents  choose  betimes  the  vocations  and 
courses  they  mean  their  children  should  take,  for  then  they  are 
most  flexible  ;  and  let  them  not  too  much  apply  themselves  to 
the  disposition  of  their  children,  as  thinking  they  will  take  best 
to  that  which  they  have  most  mind  to.  It  is  true,  that  if  the 
affection  or  aptness  of  the  children  be  extraordinary,  then  it  is 
good  not  to  cross  it ;  but  generally  the  precept  is  good,  Optimum 
elige,  suave  et  facile  illudfaciet  consuetude*  Younger  brothers  are 
commonly  fortunate,  but  seldom  or  never  where  the  elder  are 
disinherited. 


OF  MARRIAGE  AND  SINGLE  LIFE. 

HE  that  hath  wife  and  children  hath  given  hostages  to  for- 
tune ;  for  they  are  impediments  to  great  enterprises,  either  of 
virtue  or  mischief.  Certainly  the  best  works,  and  of  greatest 
merit  for  the  public,  have  proceeded  from  the  unmarried  or 
childless  men,  which  both  in  affection  and  means  have  man-led 
and  endowed  the,  public.  Yet  it  were  great  reason  that  those 
that  have  children  should  have  greatest  care  of  future  times, 
unto  which  they  know  they  must  transmit  their  dearest  pledges, 
there  are  who,  though  they  lead  a  single  life,  yet  their 
thoughts  do  end  with  themselves,  and  account  future  times  im- 
pertinences ;9  nay,  there  are  some  other  that  account  wife  and 
children  but  as  bills  of  charges  ;  nay,  more,  there  are  some  fool- 
ish rich  covetous  men  that  take  a  pride  in  having  no  children, 
because 1  they  may  be  thought  so  much  the  richer ;  for  perhaps 
they  have  heard  some  talk,  "Such  an  one  is  a  great  rich  man," 
and  another  except  to  it,  "Yea,  but  he  hath  a  great  charge  of 
children  "  ;  as  if  it  were  an  abatement  to  his  riches.  But  the 
most  ordinary  cause  of  a  single  life  is  liberty,  especially  in  cer- 

panions  have  failed  to  secure,  and  of  being  led  to  think  themselves  superior  to 
their  companions. 

8  "  Select  that  course  of  life  which  is  the  most  advantageous :  habit  will  soon 
render  it  pleasant  and  easily  endured." 

9  Impertinence  in  its  original  sense;  things  irrelevant. 

1    Because  la  here  equivalent  to  in  order  that.    So  in  St.  Matthew,  xx.,.°>l: 
"And  the  multitude  rebuked  them,  because  they  should  hold  their  peuee." 


574  BACON. 

tain  self-pleasing  and  humorous2  minds,  which  are  so  sensible  of 
every  restraint,  as  they  will  go  near  to  think  their  girdles  and 
garters  to  be  bonds  and  shackles.  Unmarried  men  aro  best 
friends,  best  masters,  best  servants;  but  not  always  best  sub- 
jects, for  they  are  light  to  run  away,  and  almost  all  fugitives  are 
of  that  condition.  A  single  life  cloth  well  with  churchmen,3  for 
charity  will  hardly  water  the  ground  where  it  must  first  fill  a 
pool.4  It  is  indifferent  for  judges  and  magistrates  ;  for  if  they 
be  facile  and  corrupt,  you  shall  have  a  servant  five  times  worse 
than  a  wife.  Forsoldiers,  I  find  the  generals  commonly,  in  their 
hortatives,  put  men  in  mind  of  their  wives  and  children  ;  and  I 
think  the  despising  of  marriage  amongst  the  Turks  maketh  the 
vulgar  soldier  more  base.  Certainly  wife  and  children  are  a 
kind  of  discipline  of  humanity;  and  single  men,  though  they 
be  many  times  more  charitable,  because  their  means  are  less 
exhaust,6  yet,  on  the  other  side,  they  are  more  cruel  and  hard- 
hearted, (good  to  make  severe  inquisitors,)  because  their  tender- 
ness is  not  so  oft  called  upon.  Grave  natures,  led  by  custom, 
and  therefore  constant,  are  commonly  loving  husbands,  as  was 
said  of  Ulysses,  Vetulam  snam  prcctulit  imnmrtalitati.*  Chaste 
women  are  often  proud  and  froward,  as  presuming  upon  the 
merit  of  their  chastity.  It  is  one  of  the  best  bonds,  both  of 
chastity  and  obedience,  in  the  wife,  if  she  think  her  husband 
wise,  which  she  will  never  do  if  she  find  him  jealous.  Wives 
are  young  men's  mistresses,  companions  for  middle  age,  and  old 
men's  nurses  ;  so  as  a  man  may  have  a  quarrel7  to  marry  when 
he  will:  but  yet  he  was  reputed  one  of  the  wise  men  that  made 
answer  to  the  question  when  a  man  should  marry,  *' A  young 
man  not  yet,  an  elder  man  not  at  all."  It  is  often  seen  that  IKK! 
husbands  have  very  good  wives  ;  whether  it  be  that  it  raisrth 
the  price  of  their  husbands'  kindness  when  it  comes,  or  that  the 

2  Humorous  was  much  used  in  the  sense  of  whimsical  or  crotchety  ;  governed 
by  humours. 

3  Churchman  for  clergyman  ;  a  frequent  usage.    So  in  Shakespeare  often. 

4  The  meaning  is,  that,  if  clergymen  have  the  expenses  of  a  family  t«>  sup 
port,  they  will  hardly  find  means  for  the  exercise  of  benevolence  toward  their 
parishioners. 

5  Exhaust  for   exhausted.     Many  preterites  were  formed  in  like   manner. 
Shakespeare  abounds  in  them.    Also  in  the  Psalter:  "And  be  ye  l(ft  up,  ye 
everlasting  doors." 

6  "He  preferred  his  aged  wife  Penelope  to  immortality."    This  was  when 
Ulysses  was  entreated  by  the  goddess  Calypso  to  give  up  all  thoughts  of  return- 
ing to  Ithaca,  and  to  remain  with  her  in  the  enjoyment  of  immortality. 

7  Quarrel  was  often  equivalent  to  cause,  reason,  or  excuse.    So  in  Uolinshed  : 
"He  thought  he  had  a  good  quarrel  to  attack  him."    And  in  Macbeth.  iv.,:>: 
•'  The  chance  of  goodness  be  like  our  warranted  quarrel"',  that  is,  "  May  virtue's 
chance  of  success  be  as  good,  as  well  warranted,  as  our  cause  is  just." 


OF   GREAT   PLACE.  575 

wives  take  a  pride  in  their  patience :  but  this  never  fails,  if  the 
bad  husbands  were  of  their  own  choosing,  against  their  friends' 
consent ;  for  then  they  will  be  sure  to  make  good  their  own 
folly. 


OF  GKEAT  PLACE 

HEX  in  great  place  are  thrice  servants, —  servants  of  the  sove- 
reign or  State,  servants  of  fame,  and  servants  of  business ;  so 
as  they  have  no  freedom,  neither  in  their  persons,  nor  in  their 
actions,  nor  in  their  times.  It  is  a  strange  desire  to  seek  power 
and  to  lose  liberty ;  or  to  seek  power  over  others,  and  to  lose 
power  over  a  man's  self.  The  rising  unto  place  is  laborious, 
and  by  pains  men  come  to  greater  pains ;  and  it  is  sometimes 
base,  and  by  indignities8  men  come  to  dignities.  The  standing 
is  slippery,  and  the  regress  is  either  a  downfall,  or  at  least  an 
eclipse,  which  is  a  melancholy  thing  :  Cum  non  sis  quifueris,  non 
essecurvelis  viverc.*  -Nay,  retire  men  cannot  when  they  would, 
neither  will  they  when  it  were  reason  ;  but  are  impatient  of  pri- 
vateness  even  in  age  and  sickness,  which  require  the  shadow  ; l 
like  old  townsmen,  that  will  be  still  sitting  at  their  street-door, 
though  thereby  they  offer  age  to  scorn.  Certainly  great  persons 
lind  need  to  borrow  other  men's  opinions  to  think  themselves 
happy  ;  for  if  they  judge  by  their  own  feeling,  they  cannot  find 
it :  but  if  they  think  with  themselves  what  other  men  think  of 
them,  and  that  other  men  would  fain  be  as  they  are,  then  they 
are  happy  as  it  were  by  report,  when,  perhaps,  they  find  the 
contrary  within  ;  for  they  are  the  first  that  find  their  own 
griefs,  though  they  be  the  last  that  find  their  own  faults.  Cer- 
tainly men  in  great  fortunes  are  strangers  to  themselves,  and 
while  they  are  in  the  puzzle  of  business  they  have  no  time  to 
tend  their  health  either  of  body  or  mind.  Illi  mors  yrauis  incu- 
/"/,  qni  twins  nimis  omnibus,  iynotus  moritur  sifrz'.2  In  place  there 
is  license  to  do  good  and  evil,  whereof  the  latter  is  a  curse  ;  for 
in  evil  the  best  condition  is  not  to  will,  the  second  not  to  can. 
But  power  to  do  good  is  the  true  and  lawful  end  of  aspiring ; 
for  good  thoughts,  though  God  accept  them,  yet  towards  men 
are  little  better  than  good  dreams,  except  they  be  put  in  act ; 

8    Indignities  for  basenesses  or  meannesses. 

y    "  Since  you  arc  not  what  you  were,  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  wish 
to  live." 

1  Shadow  for  shade;  that  is,  retirement. 

2  4I  Death  presses  heavily  upon  him  who,  too  well  known  to  all  others,  dies 
unknown  to  himself." 


57G  BACOX. 

and  that  cannot  be  without  power  and  place,  as  the  vantage  :\n<\ 
commanding  ground.  Merit  and  good  works  is  the  end  of  man's 
motion,  and  conscience'5  of  the  same-  is  the  accomplishment  of 
man's  rest;  for  if  a  man  can  be  partaker  of  (KX'I'S  theatre,  ho 
shall  likewise  be  partaker  of  God's  rest:  Kt  GO  >  "-,  nt 

aspicerct  opera,  gw&fecerunt  //r?/<".s*  suce,  vidit  quod  omni<i 
hinin  niniix  ;4  and  thon  the  Sabbath. 

In  the  discharge  of  thy  place,  set  before  thee  the  best  exam- 
ples, for  imitation  is  a  globe5  of  precepts  ;  and  after  a  time  set 
before  thee  thine  own  example,  and  examine  thyself  strictly 
whether  thou  did>t  not  best  at  first.  Neglect  not,  also,  the  ex- 
amples of  those  that  have  carried  themselves  ill  in  the  same 
plan- ;  not  to  set  off  thyself  by  taxing  their  memory,  but  to 
direct  thyself  what  to  avoid,  lleform,  therefore,  without  bra- 
very0 or  scandal  of  former  times  and  persons;  hut  y«-f  set  it 
down  to  thyself,  as  well  to  create  good  precedents  as  to  follow 
them.  Keduce  things  to  the  first  institution,  and  observe 
wherein  and  how  they  have  degenerated;  but  yet  ask  counsel 
of  both  times,  — of  the  ancient  time  what  is  be>t,  and  of  the 
later  time  what  is  fittest.  Seek  to  make  thy  course  regular, 
that  men  may  know  beforehand  what  they  may  expect  ;  but  be 
not  too  positive  and  peremptory;  and  express  thyself  well 
when  thou  digressest  from  thy  rule.  Preserve  the  right  of  tin- 
place,  but  stir  not  questions  of  jurisdiction  ;  and  rather  assume 
thy  right  in  silence,  and  <lc  %factu,~  than  voice  it  with  claims  and 
challenges.  Perserve  likewise  the  rights  of  inferior  \< 
and  think  it  more  honour  to  direct  in  chief  than  to  be  busy  in 
all.  Embrace  and  invite  helps  and  advices  touching  the  execu- 
tion of  thy  place;  and  do  not  drive  away  such  as  bring  thee 
information  as  meddlers,  but  accept  of  them  in  good  part. 

The  vices  of  authority  are  chietly  four, —  delays,  corruption, 
roughness,  and  facility.8  For  delays,  give  ea>y  access  ;  keep 
times  appointed;  go  through  with  that  which  is  in  hand,  and 
interlace  not  business  but  of  necessity.  For  corruption,  do  not 
only  bind  thine  own  hands  or  thy  servants'  hands  from  taking, 
but  bind  the  hands  of  suitors  also  from  offering  ;  for  integrity 

3  Conscience  for  consciousness.    So  Hooker:  "The  reason  why  the  simpler 

sort  are  moved  \viih  authority  is  the  eonacienee  of  their  own  ignorance." 

4  "And  God  turned  to  behold  the  works  which  his  hands  had  made,  and  he 
saw  that  every  thing  was  very  good." 

5  Globe  lor  eirele.     So  in  I'aradiae.  Lost,  ii.,  .")12 :  "Him  a  globe  of  fiery  sera- 
phim enclosed  with  bright  emblazonry." 

(>  IS  rarer)/  in  the  sense  of  brarado  or  proud  defiance.  So  in  Julius  Ctrsar,  v., 
1 :  "  They  come  down  with  fearful  bravery,  thinking  by  this  lace  to  fasten  in  our 
thoughts  that  they  h:i\c  courage." 

7  That  is,  "  as  matter  of  fact,"  or  as  a  thing  of  course. 

8  Facility  here  means  easiness  of  access,  or  pliability. 


OF   GREAT  PLACE.  577 

used  doth  the  one,  but  integrity  professed,  and  with  a  manifest 
detestation  of  bribery,  doth  the  other  ;  and  avoid  not  only  the 
fault,  but  tho  suspicion.  Whosoever  is  found  variable,  and 
changeth  manifestly  without  manifest  cause,  giveth  suspicion 
of  corruption:  therefore  always,  when  thou  changcst  thine 
opinion  or  course,  profess  it  plainly,  and  declare  it,  together 
with  the  reasons  that  move  thee  to  change,  and  do  not  think  to 
steal  it.9  A  servant  or  a  favourite,  if  he  be  inward,1  and  no 
other  apparent  cause  of  esteem,  is  commonly  thought  but  a 
by-way  to  close2  corruption.  For  roughness,  it  is  a  needless 
cause  of  discontent :  severity  breedeth  fear,  but  roughness 
breedeth  hate.  Even  reproofs  from  authority  ought  to  be 
grave,  and  not  taunting.  As  for  facility,  it  is  worse  than  bri- 
bery :  for  bribes  come  but  now  and  then  ;  but  if  importunity  or 
idle  respects3  lead  a  man,  he  shall  never  be  without;  as  Solo- 
mon saith,  "To  respect  persons  is  not  good  ;  for  such  a  man  will 
transgress  for  a  piece  of  bread." 

It  is  most  true  that  was  anciently  spoken, —  "A  place  showeth 
the  man  ;  "  and  it  showrtli  some  to  the  better  and  some  to  the 
worst'.  Omnium  rn/i.sr/j.sa  capax  iHtpcrii,  nisi  imperasset,*  saith 
Tacitus  of  Galba  ;  but  of  Vespasian  he  saith,  Solus  imperantium, 

*!anus  mu tutus  inmeUus;*  though  the  one  was  meant  of 
suHiciency,  the  other  of  manners  and  affection.  It  is  an  assured 
sign  of  a  worthy  and  generous  spirit,  whom  honour  amends ; 
for  honour  is,  or  should  be,  the  place  of  virtue  ;  and  as  in  Nat- 
ure things  move  violently  to  their  place,  and  calmly  in  their 
place,  so  virtue  in  ambition  is  violent,  in  authority  settled  and 
calm.  All  rising  to  great  place  is  by  a  winding  stair ;  and  if 

!><•  factions,  it  is  good  to  side  a  man's  self  whilst  he  is  in 
the  rising,  and  to  balance  himself  when  he  is  placed.  Use  the 
memory  of  thy  predecessor  fairly  and  tenderly  ;  for,  if  thou  dost 
not.  it  is  a  debt  will  sure  be  paid  when  thou  art  gone.  If  thou 

•olleagues,  respect  them  ;  and  rather  call  them  when  they 
look  not  for  it,  than  exclude  them  when  they  have;  reason  to 
look  to  be  called.  I>e  not  too  sensible  or  too  remembering  of 
thy  place,  in  conversation  and  private  answers  to  suitors;  but 
let  it  rather  be  said,  "  When  he  sits  in  place,  he  is  another  man." 

0  To  titeid  is  to  do  a  thing  secretly.    So  in  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  iii.,  2: 

"  T \vere  jronil,  mi-thinks,  to  xtwi.  our  marriage." 

1  Jitmitnl.  for  in.thn  itr.    So  in  King  Richard  the  Third,  iii.,  4:  "  Who  is  most 
ininirtl  with  the  noble  duke?  " 

•1     I'lom:  in  tin-  M-IISC  of  xrcrt't  or  hi<l<l<-n  ;  a  frequent  usage.  . 

3  /Ifxppc.tx  for  cimsitlfriitionH  ;  also  a  frequent  usage. 

4  "All  would  have  agreed  in  pronouncing  him  lit  to  govern,  if  he  had  not 
tjoverne.l." 

5  "Of  the  emperors,  Vespasian  alone  changed  for  the  better  after  his  acce»- 


578  BACON. 


OF  BOLDNESS. 

IT  is  a  trivial  grammar-school  text,  but  yet  worthy  a  wise 
man's  consideration.  Question  was  asked  of  Demosthenes, 
what  was  the  chief  part  of  an  orator?  he  answered,  action: 
what  next?  action:  what  next  again  V  action.  lie  said  it  that 
knew  it  best,  and  had  by  nature  himself  no  advantage  in  that 
lie  commended.  A  strange  thing,  that  that  part  of  an  orator 
which  is  but  superficial,  and  rather  the  virtue  of  a  player, 
should  be  placed  so  high  above  those  other  noble  parts  of  in- 
vention, elocution,  and  the  rest ;  nay,  almost  alone,  as  if  it  were 
all  in  all.  But  the  reason  is  plain.  There  is  in  human  nature 
generally  more  of  the  fool  than  of  the  wise  ;  and  therefore 
those  faculties  by  which  the  foolish  part  of  men's  minds  is 
taken  are  most  potent.  Wonderful  like  is  the  case  of  boldness 
in  civil  business:  what  first?  boldness  ;  what  second  and  third? 
boldness.  And  yet  boldness  is  a  child  of  ignorance  and  1  use- 
ness,  far  inferior  to  other  parts  ;  but,  nevertheless,  it  doth  fas- 
cinate, and  bind  hand  and  foot  those  that  are  either  shallow  in 
judgment  or  weak  in  courage,  which  are  the  greatest  part ;  yea, 
and  prevaileth  with  wise  men  at  weak  times:  therefore  we  see 
it  hath  done  wonders  in  popular  States,  but  with  senate.-  and 
princes  less;  and  more,  ever  upon  the  fn>t  entrance  of  bold 
persons  into  action,  than  soon  after  ;  for  boldness  is  an  ill  keeper 
of  promise.  Surely,  as  there  are  mountebanks  for  the  natural 
body,  so  are  there  mountebanks  for  the  politic  body, — men  that 
undertake  great  cures,  and  perhaps  have  been  lucky  in  two  or 
three  experiments,  but  want  the  grounds  of  science,  and  there- 
fore cannot  hold  out;  nay,  you  shall  see  a  bold  fellow  many 
times  do  Mahomet's  miracle.  Mahomet  made  the  people  be- 
lieve that  he  would  call  a  hill  to  him,  and  from  the  top  of  it 
offer  up  his  prayers  for  the  observers  of  his  law.  The  people 
assembled:  Mahomet  called  the  hill  to  come  to  him  again  and 
again  ;  and  when  the  hill  stood  still,  he  was  never  a  whit 
abashed,  but  said,  "If  the  hill  will  not  come  to  Mahomet.  Ma- 
homet will  go  to  the  hill."  So  these  men,  when  they  have 
promised  great  matters  and  failed  most  shamefully,  yet  (if  they 
have  the  perfection  of  boldness)  they  will  but  slight  it  over, 
and  make  a  turn,  and  no  more  ado.  Certainly,  to  men  <>;' 
judgment,  bold  persons  are  a  sport  to  behold  ;  nay.  and  to 
the  vulgar  also  boldness  hath  somewhat  of  the  ridiculous  ;  for, 
if  absurdity  be  the  subject  of  laughter,  doubt  you  not  bin 
boldness  is  seldom  Without  some  absurdity:  especially  it  is  a 
sport  to  see  when  a  bold  fellow  is  out  of  countenance,  for  that 
puts  his  face  into  a  most  shrunken  and  wooden  posture,  as 


OF  GOODNESS,   AND   GOODNESS  OF   NATURE.  579 

needs  it  must:  for  in  bashfulness  the  spirits  do  a  little  go  and 
come ;  but  with  bold  men,  upon  like  occasion,  they  stand  at  a 
stay ;  like  a  stale  at  chess,  where  it  is  no  mate,  but  yet  the 
game  cannot  stir:6  but  this  last  were  fitter  for  a  satire  than  for 
a  serious  observation.  This  is  well  to  be  weighed,  that  bold- 
ness is  ever  blind  ;  for  it  seeth  not  dangers  and  inconveniences: 
therefore  it  is  ill  in  counsel,  good  in  execution  ;  so  that  the  right 
use  of  bold  persons  is,  that  they  never  command  in  chief,  but  be 
seconds  and  under  the  direction  of  others  ;  for  in  counsel  it  is 
good  to  see  dangers,  and  in  execution  not  to  see  them  except 
they  be  very  great. 


OF  GOODNESS,  AND  GOODNESS  OF  NATURE. 

I  TAKE  goodness  in  this  sense, — the  affecting  of  the  weal  of 
men,  which  is  that  the  Grecians  call  PMlanthropia;  and  the 
word  humanity  (as  it  is  used)  is  a  little  too  light  to  express  it. 
Goodness  I  call  the  habit,  and  goodness  of  nature  the  inclina- 
tion. This,  of  all  virtues  and  dignities  of  the  mind,  is  the 
greatest,  being  the  character  of  the  Deity  ;  and  without  it  man 
is  a  busy,  mischievous,  wretched  thing,  no  better  than  a  kind  of 
vermin.  Goodness  answers  to  the  theological  virtue  charity, 
and  admits  no  excess  but  error.  The  desire  of  power  in  excess 
caused  the  angels  to  fall ;  the  desire  of  knowledge  in  excess 
caused  man  to  fall ;  but  in  charity  there  is  no  excess,  neither 
can  angel  or  man  come  in  danger  by  it.  The  inclination  to 
goodness  is  imprinted  deeply  in  the  nature  of  man  ;  insomuch 
that,  if  it  issue  not  towards  men,  it  will  take  unto  other  living 
nvutures  ;  as  it  is  seen  in  the  Turks,  a  cruel  people,  who  never- 
theless are  kind  to  beasts,  and  give  alms  to  dogs  and  birds ; 
insomuch  as  Busbechius7  reporteth,  a  Christian  boy  in  Con- 
stantinople had  like  to  have  been  stoned  for  gagging  in  a  wag- 
gishness  a  long-billed  fowl.8  Errors,  indeed,  in  this  virtue,  of 

6  Stale-mate  was  a  term  in  chess ;  used  when  the  game  was  ended  by  the  king 
being  alone  and  unchecked,  and  then  forced  into  a  situation  from  which  he  was 
unable  to  move;  without  going  into  check.    A  rather  ignominious  predicament. 

7  A  learned  traveller,  born  in  Flanders,  in  1522.    He  was  employed  by  the 
Krnperor  Ferdinand  as  ambassador  to  the  Sultan  Solyman  II.    His  Letters  rela- 
tive to  his  travels  in  the  Kast,  which  are  written  in  Latin,  contain  much  inter- 
esting information.    They  were  the  pocket  companion  of  Gibbon. 

8  In  this  instance  the   stork  or  crane  was   probably  protected,  not  on  the 
abstract  grounds  mentioned  in  the  text,  but  for  reasons  of  policy  and  gratitude 
combined.    In  Eastern  climates  the  cranes  and  dogs  are  far  more  efficacious 
than  human  agency  in  removing  fllth  and  offal,  and  thereby  diminishing  the 
chances  of  pestilence.    Superstition,  also,  may  have  formed  another  motive,  as 


580  BACOX. 

goodness  or  charity,  may  be  committed.  The  Italians  have  ail 
ungracious  proverb.  'J'untoliwnche  »•<// m'<i»/»,  —  "  So  good,  that  ho 
is  good  for  nothing";  and  one  of  the  doctors  of  Italy,  .Nicholas 
Machiavel,'J  hud  the  confidence  to  put  in  writing,  almost  in 
plain  terms,  "That  the  Christian  faith  had  given  up  good  men 
in  prey  to  those  that  are  tyrannical  and  unjust";  which  he 
spake,  hecau>e,  indeed,  there  was  never  law,  or  Beet,  or  opinion 
did  so  much  magnif\  goodness  as  tin;  C'hri>tian  religion  doth: 
therefore,  to  avoid  the  scandal  and  the  danger  both,  it  is  good 
to  take  knowledge  of  the  errors  of  a  habit  so  excellent.  Seek 
the  good  of  other  men,  but  be  not  in  bondage  to  their  faces  or 
fancies  ;  for  that  is  but  facility  or  softness,  which  taketh  an 
honest  mind  prisoner.  Neither  give  thou  ^Esop's  cock  a  gem, 
who  would  be  better  pleased  and  happier  if  he  had  had  a 
barley-corn.  The  example  of  God  t cachet h  the  lesson  truly: 
"He  sendeth  His  rain,  and  niaketh  His  Sun  to  shine  upon  the 
just  and  the  unjust";  but  He  doth  not  rain  wealth,  nor  shine 
honour  and  virtues  upon  men  equally:  common  benefits  are  to 
be  communicate  with  all,  but  peculiar  bcnelits  with  choice. 
And  beware  how  in  making  the  portraiture  thou  breakest  the 
pattern  ;  for  divinity  maketh  the  love  of  ourselves  the  pattern, 
the  love  of  our  neighbours  but  the  portraiture.  "Sell  all  thou 
hast,  and  give  it  to  the  poor,  and  follow  Me";  but  sell  not  all 
thou  hast  except  thou  come  and  follow  Me  ;  that  is,  except  thou 
have  a  vocation  wherein  thou  mayest  do  as  much  good  with 
little  means  as  with  great ;  for  otherwise,  in  feeding  the  streams, 
thou  driest  the  fountain. 

Neither  is  there  only  a  habit  of  goodness  directed  by  right 
reason  ;  but  there  is  in  some  men,  even  in  nature,  a  disposition 
towards  it,  as,  on  the  other  side,  there  is  a  natural  malignity ; 
for  there  be  that  in  their  nature  do  not  affect  the  good  of  oth- 
ers. The  lighter  sort  of  malignity  turneth  but  to  a  crossness, 
or  frowardness,  or  aptness  to  oppose,  or  ditlicileness,1  or  the 
like;  but  the  deeper  sort  to  envy,  and  mere  mischief.  Such 
men,  in  other  men's  calamities,  are,  as  it  were,  in  season,  and 

we  learn  that  storks  were  held  there  in  a  sort  of  religious  reverence,  because 
they  were  supposed  to  make  every  Winter  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca. 

y  Nicolo  Machiavclli,  a  Florentine  statesman,  lie  wrote  "  Discourses  on  the 
iirst  Decade  of  Livy,"  which  were  conspicuous  tor  their  liberality  of  sentiment, 
and  just  and  profound  relleetious.  This  work  was  succeeded  by  his  famous 
treatise,  The  /'rince,  his  patron,  Ca-sar  JJorgia,  being  the  model  of  the  perfect 
prince  (here  described  by  him.  The  whole  scope  of  this  work  is  directed  to  one 
object—  the  maintenance  of  pjwer,  however  acquired.  The  word  .Y/,/<-;< . 
has  been  adopted  to  denote  all  that  is  deformed,  insincere,  and  perlidious  in 
politics.  lie  died  in  l.V.'T. 

1  This  hard  word  comes  pretty  near  meauiug  uiireasotiablene**,  or  unpcr- 
smulubleness. 


OF   ATHEISM.  581 

are  ever  on  the  loading  part;  not  so  good  as  the  dogs  that 
licked  Lazarus'  sores,  but  like  flies  that  are  still  buzzing  upon 
any  thing  that,  is  raw  ;  misanthropi,  that  make  it  their  practice 
to  bring  men  to  the  bough,  and  yet  have  never  a  tree  for  the 
purpose  in  thr-ir  gardens,  as  Timon2  had.  Such  dispositions 
are  the  very  errors  of  human  nature,  and  yet  they  are  the 
fittest  timber  to  make  great  politics  of ;  like  to  knee-timber,8 
that  is  good  for  ships  that  are  ordained  to  be  tossed,  but  not  for 
building  houses  that  shall  stand  firm. 

The  parts  and  signs  of  goodness  are  many.  If  a  man  be  gra- 
cious and  courteous  to  strangers,  it  shows  he  is  a  citizen  of  the 
world,  and  that  his  heart  is  no  island  cut  off  from  other  lands, 
but  a  continent  that  joins  to  them  :  if  he  be  compassionate 
towards  the  afflictions  of  others,  it  shows  that  his  heart  is  like 
the  noble  tree  that  is  wounded  itself  when  it  gives  the  balm:4 
if  he  easily  pardons  and  remits  offences,  it  shows  that  his  mind 
is  planted  above  injuries,  so  that  he  cannot  be  shot:  if  he  be 
thankful  for  small  benefits,  it  shows  that  he  weighs  men's 
minds,  and  not  their  trash:  but,  above  all,  if  he  have  St.  Paul's 
perfection,  that  he  would  wish  to  be  an  anathema6  from  Christ 
for  the  salvation  of  his  brethren,  it  shows  much  of  a  Divine 
nature,  and  a  kind  of  conformity  with  Christ  himself. 


OF  ATHEISM. 

1  had  rather  believe  all  the  fables  in  the  Legend,6  and  the 
Talmud,7  and  the  Alcoran,  than  that  this  universal  frame  is 
without  a  mind  ;  and  therefore  God  never  wrought  miracles  to 
convince  atheism,  because  His  ordinary  works  convince  it.    It 

2  Timon  of  Athens,  as  he  is  generally  called,  was  surnamed  the  Misanthrope, 
from  the  hatred  which  he  bore  it)  his  fellow-men.    Going  to  the  public,  assembly 
on  one  occasion,  he  mounted  the  Rostrum,  and  stated  that  he  had  a  flg-tree  on 
which  many  worthy  citizens  had  ended  their  days  by  the  halter;  that  he  was 
going  to  cut  it  down  for  the  purpose  of  building  on  the  spot,  and  therefore  rec- 
ommended them  to  avail  themselves  of  it  before  it  was  too  late. 

:J  A  piece  of  timber  that  has  grown  crooked,  and  has  been  so  cut  that  the 
trunk  and  branch  form  an  angle. 

4  lie  probably  here  refers  to  the  myrrh-tree.  Incision  is  the  method  usually 
adopted  for  extracting  the  resinous  juices  of  trees:  as  in  the  india-rubber  and 
gutta-percha 

6  A  votive,  and  in  the  present  instance  a  vicarious  offering,    lie  alludes  to 
the  words  of  St.  Paul  in  his  Second  Epistle  to  Timothy,  ii.,  10. 

0    The  Legend  was  a  collection  of  miraculous  and  wonderful  stories;  so  called 
•  the  book  was  appointed  to  be.  read  in  churches  on  certain  days. 

7  This  is  the  book  that  contains  the  Jewish  traditions,  and  the  Rabbinical 
explanations  of  the  law.    It  is  replete  with  wonderful  narratives. 


582  BACON. 

is  true,  that  a  little  philosophy  inclineth  man's  mind  to  atheism, 
but  depth  in  philosophy  bringeth  men's  minds  about  to  relig- 
ion ;  for,  while  the  mind  of  man  looketh  upon  second  causes 
scattered,  it  may  sometimes  rest  in  them,  and  go  no  further  ;  but 
when  it  beholdeth  the  chain  of  them  confederate,  and  linked 
together,  it  must  needs  fly  to  Providence  and  Deity  :  nay,  even 
that  school  which  is  most  accused  of  atheism  doth  most  demon- 
strate religion ;  that  is,  the  school  of  Leucippus,8  and  Democ- 
ritus,9  and  Epicurus:  for  it  is  a  thousand  times  more  credible1 
that  four  mutable  elements  and  one  immutable  fifth  essence,1 
duly  and  eternally  placed,  need  no  God.  than  that  an  army  of 
infinite  small  portions,  or  seeds  unplaced,2  should  have  pro- 
duced this  order  or  beauty  without  a  Divine  marshal.  The 
Scripture  saith,  "The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,  there  is  no 
God";  it  is  not  said,  "The  fool  hath  thought  in  his  heart":  so 
as  he  rather  saith  it  by  rote  to  himself,  as  that3  he  would  have, 
than  that  he  can  thoroughly  believe  it,  or  be  persuaded  of  it ; 
for  none  deny  there  is  a  God,  but  those  for  whom  it  maketh* 
that  there  were  no  God.  It  appeareth  in  nothing  more  that 
atheism  is  rather  in  the  lip  than  in  the  heart  of  man,  than  by 
this,  that  atheists  will  ever  be  talking  of  that  their  opinion,  as 
if  they  fainted  in  it  within  themselves,  and  would  be  glad  to  be 
strengthened  by  consent  of  others ;  nay,  more,  you  shall  have 
atheists  strive  to  get  disciples,  as  it  fareth  with  other  sects ; 
and,  which  is  most  of  all,  you  shall  have  of  them  that  will 
suffer  for  atheism,  and  not  recant:  whereas,  if  they  did  truly 
think  that  there  were  no  such  thing  as  God,  why  should  they 
trouble  themselves  ?  Epicurus  is  charged,  that  he  did  but  dis- 

8  A  Philosopher  of  Abdera;  the  first  who  taught  the  system  of  atoms,  which 
was  afterwards  more  fully  developed  by  Deraocritus  and  Epicurus. 

9  lie  was  a  disciple  of  the  last-named  philosopher,  and  held  the  same  princi- 
ples :  he  also  denied  the  existence  of  the  soul  alter  death.    He  is  considered  to 
have  been  the  parent  of  experimental  Philosophy,  and  was  the  first  t 

what  is  now  confirmed  by  science,  that  the  Milky  Way  is  an  accumulation  of 
stars. 

1  The  "four  mutable  elements"  are  earth,  water,  air,  and  fire,  of  which  all 
visible  things  were  thought  to  be  composed.    The  "fifth  essence,"  commonly 
called  quintessence,  was  an  immaterial  principle,  superior  to  the  four  elements; 
a  spirit-power. 

2  The  Epicureans  held  that  the  Universe  consisted,  originally,  of  atoms  dif- 
fused chaotically  through  space,  and  that,  after  infinite-  trials  and  encounters, 
without  any  counsel  or  design,  these  did  at  last,  by  a  lucky  chance,  "entangle 
and  settle  themselves  in  this  beautiful  and  regular  frame  of  the  world  which  \ve 
now  sec."    In  other  words,  that  old  chaos  grew  into  the  present  order  I 
tuitous  concourse  of  those  atoms. 

3  Here  that  is  equivalent  to  the  compound  relative  tchat,  that  which.    The 
usage  was  very  common. 

4  That  is,  whose  ends  it  serves,  or  whose  interest  it  is. 


OF  ATHEISM.  583 

serable  for  his  credit's  sake,  when  lie  affirmed  there  were 
blessed  natures,  but  such  as  enjoyed  themselves  without  hav- 
ing respect  to  the  government  of  the  world ;  wherein  they  say 
he  did  temporize,  though  in  secret  he  thought  there  was  no 
God:  but  certainly  he  is  traduced,  for  his  words  are  noble  and 
divine:  JVbft  Dcos  vulgi  negare  profanum;  sedvulgi  opiniones  Diis 
applicare  pro/cmwm.5  Plato  could  have  said  no  more  ;  and, 
although  he  had  the  confidence  to  deny  the  administration,  he 
had  not  the  power  to  deny  the  nature.  The  Indians  of  the 
West  have  names  for  their  particular  gods,  though  they  have 
no  name  for  God:  as  if  the  heathens  should  have  had  the 
names  Jupiter,  Apollo,  Mars,  &c.,  but  not  the  word  Deus:  which 
shows  that  even  those  barbarous  people  have  the  notion, 
though  they  have  not  the  latitude  and  extent  of  it;  so  that 
against  atheists  the  very  savages  take  part  with  the  very  sub- 
tilest  philosophers.  The  contemplative  atheist  is  rare, —  a  Di- 
agoras,  a  Bion,  a  Lucian,  perhaps,  and  some  others:  and  yet 
they  seem  to  be  more  than  they  are  ;  for  that  all  that  impugn 
a  received  religion,  or  superstition,  are,  by  the  adverse  part, 
branded  with  the  name  of  atheists:  but  the  great  atheists  in- 
deed are  hypocrites,  which  are  ever  handling  holy  things,  but 
without  feeling ;  so  as  they  must  needs  be  cauterized  in  the  end. 
The  causes  of  atheism  are,  divisions  in  religion,  if  there  be 
many  ;  for  any  one  main  division  addeth  zeal  to  both  sides,  but 
many  divisions  introduce  atheism:  another  is,  scandal  of  priests, 
when  it  is  come  to  that  which  St.  Bernard  saith,  Non  estjam  di- 
cere,  ut  populus,  sic  sacerdos;  quia  nee  sic  populus,  ut  sacerdos:6 
a  third  is,  custom  of  profane  scoffing  in  holy  matters,  which 
doth  by  little  and  little  deface  the  reverence  of  religion:  and 
lastly,  learned  times,  especially  with  peace  and  prosperity  ;  for 
troubles  and  adversities  do  more  bow  men's  minds  to  religion. 
They  that  deny  a  God  destroy  man's  nobility ;  for  certainly 
iimn  is  of  kin  to  the  beasts  by  his  body ;  and,  if  he  be  not  of  kin 
to  God  by  his  spirit,  he  is  a  base  and  ignoble  creature.  It  de- 
stroys likewise  magnanimity,  and  the  raising  of  human  nature  ; 
for  take  an  example  of  a  dog,  and  mark  what  a  generosity  and 
courage  he  will  put  on  when  he  finds  himself  maintained  by  a 

5  " It  is  not  profane  to  deny  the  gods  of  the  common  people;  but  to  apply  to 
the  gods  the  notions  of  the  common  people,  is  profane." 

0  "It  is  not  now  to  be  said,  As  the  people  so  the  priest,  for  the  people  are 
not  so  bad  as  the  priests."— St.  Bernard.  Abbot  of  Clairvaux,  founded  a  hundred 
and  sixty  convents,  and  died  in  1153.  He  was  unsparing  in  his  censures  of  the 
<>f  his  time.  Gibbon  speaks  of  him  as  follows:  "Princes  and  pontiffs 
trembled  at  tho  freedom  of  his  apostolical  censures:  France,  England,  and 
Milan  consulted  and  obeyed  his  judgment  in  a  schism  of  the  Church:  tho  debt 
was  i-cpayed  by  tho  gratitude  of  Innocent  tho  Second;  and  his  successor,  Eu- 
geuius  the  Third,  was  the  friend  and  disciple  of  tho  holy  Bernard." 


584  BACON. 

man,  who  to  him  is  instead  of  a  God,  or  melior  natura  ;T  which 
courage  is  manifestly  such  as  that  creature,  without  that  con- 
fidence of  a  better  nature  than  his  own,  could  never  attain.  So 
man,  when  he  resteth  and  assureth  himself  upon  Divine  pro- 
tection and  favour,  gathereth  a  force  and  faith  which  human 
nature  in  itself  could  not  obtain  ;  therefore,  as  atheism  is  in  all 
respects  hateful,  so  in  this,  that  it  depriveth  human  nature  of 
the  means  to  exalt  itself  above  human  frailty.  As  it  is  in  partic- 
ular persons,  so  it  is  in  nations:  never  was  there  such  a  state  for 
magnanimity  as  Kome.  Of  this  state  hear  what  Cicero  saith: 
Quam  volumits,  licet,  Patres  conscript  I,  nns  am<:/iiiix,  ttinicn  ncc  num- 
cro  Iliapanos,  nccrobmr  (iaUos*,  nee  calUditate  Pcenos,  nee  artibvs 
Grcccos,  ncc  <!<  /ii<ji><  hoc  ipso  hujus  ycntis  et  tcrrce  domestico  nati- 
voque  sensn  Italos  ipsos  et  Latinos;  sed  pietate,  ac  religione,  atque 
hacuna  sapimtia,  qw»l  l)<a,-um  immortulium  numinc  omnia  regi, 
yubernarique  perspczi/no*,  omncs  gentcs  nationesque  sitperavimus.* 


OF  SUPERSTITION. 

IT  were  better  to  have  no  opinion  of  God  at  all  than  such  an 
opinion  as  is  unworthy  of  Him  ;  for  the  one  is  unbelief,  the 
other  is  contumely:  and  certainly  superstition  is  the  reproach 
of  the  Deity.  Plutarch  saith  well  to  that  purpose:  "  Surely," 
said  he,  "I  had  rather  a  great  deal  men  should  say  there  was 
no  such  man  at  all  as  Plutarch,  than  that  they  should  say  that 
there  was  one  Plutarch  that  would  eat  his  children  as  soon  as 
they  were  born";  as  the  poets  speak  of  Saturn :'J  and  as  the 
contumely  is  greater  towards  God,  so  the  danger  is  greater 
towards  men.  Atheism  leaves  a  man  to  sense,  to  philosophy, 
to  natural  piety,  to  laws,  to  reputation  ;  all  which  may  be  guides 
to  an  outward  moral  virtue,  though  religion  were  not ;  but  su- 
perstition dismounts  all  these,  and  erecteth  an  absolute  mon- 
archy in  the  minds  of  men:  therefore  atheism  did  never  perturb 

7  That  is,  "  a  superior  nature." 

8  "  Let  us  be  as  partial  to  ourselves  as  we  will,  Conscript  Fathers.  yet  wo  have 
not  surpassed  the  Spaniards  in  number,  nor  the  Gauls  in  strength,  nor  the 
Carthaginians  in  cunning,  nor  the  Greeks  in  the  arts,  nor.  lastly,  the  Latins  and 
Italians  of  this  nation  and  land,  in  natural  intelligence  about  hoino-allaii's  ;  hut 
we  have  excelled  all  nations  and  people  in  piety  and  religion,  and  in  this  one 
wisdom  of  fully  recognizing  that  all  things  are  ordered  and  governed  by  the 
power  of  the  immortal  gods." 

9  Time  was  personified  in  Saturn,  and  by  this  story  waa  meant  its  tendency 
to  destroy  whatever  it  baa  brought  into  existence. 


OF  SUPERSTITION.  585 

States ; l  for  it  makes  men  wary  of  themselves,  as  looking  no 
further.  And  we  see  the  times  inclined  to  atheism  (as  the  time 
of  Augustus  Caesar)  were  civil  times ; 2  but  superstition  hath 
been  the  confusion  of  many  States,  and  bringeth  in  a  new 
pfiirtiim  mobile,'3  that  ravisheth  all  the  spheres  of  government. 
The  master  of  superstition  is  the  people,  and  in  all  superstition 
wise  men  follow  fools  ;  and  arguments  are  fitted  to  practice  in 
a  reversed  order.  It  was  gravely  said  by  some  of  the  prelates 
in  the  Council  of  Trent,  where  the  doctrine  of  the  schoolmen 
bare  great  sway,  that  the  schoolmen  were  like  astronomers, 
which  did  feign  eccentrics  and  epicycles,4  and  such  engines  of 
orbs,  to  save  the  phenomena,  though  they  knew  there  were  no 
such  things  ;  and,  in  like  manner,  that  the  schoolmen  had 
framed  a  number  of  subtile  and  intricate  axioms  and  theorems, 
to  save  the  practice  of  the  Church. 

The  causes  of  superstition  are,  pleasing  and  sensual  rites  and 
ceremonies  ;  excess  of  outward  and  Pharisaical  holiness  ;  over- 
great  reverence  of  traditions,  which  cannot  but  load  the  Church  ; 
tin-  stratagems  of  prelates  for  their  own  ambition  and  lucre  ; 
the  favouring  too  much  of  good  intentions,  which  openeth  the 
gate  to  conceits  and  novelties ;  the  taking  an  aim  at  Divine 
matters  by  human,  which  cannot  but  breed  mixture  of  imagi- 
nations ;  and,  lastly,  barbarous  times,  especially  joined  with 
calamities  and  disasters.  Superstition,  without  a  veil,  is  a  de- 
formed thing  ;  for  as  it  addeth  deformity  to  an  ape  to  be  so  like 
a  man,  so  the  similitude  of  superstition  to  religion  makes  it  the 
more  deformed ;  and  as  wholesome  meat  corrupteth  to  little 
worms,  so  good  forms  and  orders  corrupt  into  a  number  of  petty 
observances.  There  is  a  superstition  in  avoiding  superstition, 
when  men  think  to  do  best  if  they  go  farthest  from  the  super- 
stition formerly  received;5  therefore  care  would6  be  had  that 
(as  it  fareth  in  ill  purgings)  the  good  be  not  taken  away  with  the 
bad,  which  commonly  is  done  when  the  people  is  the  reformer. 

1  Bacon  would  hardly  have  written  this  passage,  had  he  lived  after  the 
French  Revolution.  See  some  of  tbe  pieces  from  Burke  in  this  volume;  es- 
pecially that  on  page  296. 

•2  \ndyetiii  those  very  times  human  society  was,  through  sheer  profligacy, 
}T"iii^  to  ruin  faster  in  Rome,  was  rotting  inwards  more  deeply,  than  it  has 
ever  done  in  any  modern  nation. 

3  In  the  astronomical  language  of  Bacon's  time,  primum  mobile  meant  a  body 
drawing  all  others  into  its  own  sphere. 

4  An  epicycle  is  a  smaller  circle,  whose  centre  is  in  the  circumference  of  a 
greater  one. 

for  example,  in  Bacon's  time,  there  was  a  class  of  people  who  had  a 
superstitious  dread  of  such  things  as  the  ring  in  marriage,  and  kneeling  at  the 
Lord's  supper. 
6    Would  for  should.    See  page  568,  note  1. 


586  BACOX. 


OF  TRAVEL. 

TRAVEL,  in  the  younger  sort,  is  a  part  of  education ;  in  the 
elder,  a  part  of  experience.  He  that  travelleth  into  a  country 
before  he  hath  some  entrance  into  the  language,  goeth  to  school, 
and  not  to  travel.  That  young  men  travel  under  some  tutor  or 
grave  servant,  I  allow7  well ;  so  that  he  be  such  a  one  that  hath 
the  language,  and  hath  been  in  the  country  before;  whereby 
ho  may  be  able  to  tell  them  what  things  are  worthy  to  be  seen 
in  the  country  where  they  go,  what  acquaintances  they  are 
to  seek,  what  exercises  or  discipline  the  place  yieldeth  ;  for 
else  young  men  shall  go  hooded,  and  look  abroad  little.  It  is  a 
strange  thing  that,  in  sea-voyages,  where  there  is  nothing  to  bo 
seen  but  sky  and  sea,  men  should  make  diaries;  but  in  land- 
travel,  wherein  so  much  is  to  be  observed,  for  the  most  part 
they  omit  it ;  as  if  chance  were  fitter  to  be  registered  than  ob- 
servation: let  diaries,  therefore,  be  brought  in  use.  The  things 
to  be  seen  and  observed  are,  the  Courts  of  princes,  especially 
when  they  give  audience  to  ambassadors  ;  the  courts  of  justice, 
while  they  sit  and  hear  causes  ;  and  so  of  consistories  ecclesi- 
astic ;  the  churches  and  monasteries,  with  the  monuments  which 
are  therein  extant ;  the  walls  and  fortifications  of  cities  and 
towns  ;  and  so  the  havens  and  harbours,  antiquities  and  ruins, 
libraries,  college?,  disputation;*,  and  lectures,  where  any  are; 
shipping  and  navies  ;  houses  and  gardens  of  state  and  pleasure 
near  great  cities;  armories,  arsenals,  magazines,  exchanges, 
bourses,8  warehouses,  exercises  of  horsemanship,  fencing,  train- 
ing of  soldiers,  and  the  like ;  comedies,  such  whereunto  the 
better  sort  of  persons  do  resort ;  treasuries  of  jewels  and  robes  ; 
cabinets  and  rarities  ;  and,  to  conclude,  whatsoever  is  memora- 
ble in  the  places  where  they  go  ;  after  all  which  the  tutors  or 
servants  ought  to  make  diligent  inquiry.  As  for  triumphs,9 
masques,  feasts,  weddings,  funerals,  capital  executions,  and  such 
shows,  men  need  not  to  be  put  in  mind  of  them  ;  yet  they  are 
not  to  be  neglected.  If  you  will  have  a  young  man  to  put  his 
travel  into  a  little  room,  and  in  short  time  to  gather  much,  this 
you  must  do:  first,  as  was  said,  he  must  have  some  entrance 
into  the  language  before  he  goeth  ;  then  he  must  have  such  a 
servant,  or  tutor,  as  knoweth  the  country,  as  was  likewise  said: 
let  him  cairy  with  him  also  some  card,  or  book,  describing  the 

7  Approve  is  the  old  meaning  of  allow.    Often  so  in  Shakespeare.   Also  in  the 
Psalms:  "The  Lord  alloirctk  the  lighteous." 

8  Jhntrse  is  French  for  purse;  and  the  sign  of  a  purse  was  anciently  set  over 
the  places  whore  merchants  met. 

9  Public  shows  of  any  kind  were  often  called  triumphs. 


OF   WISDOM   FOR  A   MAN'S   SELF.  587 

country  where  he  travelleth,  which  will  be  a  good  key  to  his 
inquiry  ;  let  him  keep  also  a  diary  ;  let  him  not  stay  long  in  one 
city  or  town,  more  or  less  as  the  place  deserveth,  but  not  long  ; 
nay,  when  he  stayeth  in  one-  city  or  town,  let  him  change  his 
lodging  from  one  end  and  part  of  the  town  to  another,  which  is 
a  great  adamant1  of  acquaintance;  let  him  sequester  himself 
from  the  company  of  his  countrymen,  and  diet  in  such  places 
where  there  is  good  company  of  the  nation  where  he  travelleth  ; 
let  him,  upon  his  removes  from  one  place  to  another,  procure 
recommendation  to  some  person  of  quality  residing  in  the  place 
whither  he  removeth,  that  he  may  use  his  favour  in  those  things 
he  desireth  to  see  or  know  ;  thus  he  may  abridge  his  travel  with 
much  profit. 

As  for  the  acquaintance  which  is  to  be  sought  in  travel,  that 
which  is  most  of  all  profitable  is  acquaintance  with  the  secreta- 
ries and  employed  men2  of  ambassadors;  for  so  in  travelling  in 
one  country  he  shall  suck  the  experience  of  many.  Let  him 
also  see  andvisiteminent  persons  in  all  kinds,  which  are  of  great 
name  abroad,  that  he  may  be  able  to  tell  how  the  life  agreeth 
with  the  fame:  for  quarrels,  they  are  with  care  and  discretion 
to  be  avoided ;  they  are  commonly  for  mistresses,  healths,3  place, 
and  words:  and  let  a  man  beware  how  he  keepeth  company  with 
choleric  and  quarrelsome  persons ;  for  they  will  engage  him  into 
their  own  quarrels.  When  a  traveller  returneth  home,  let  him 
not  leave  the  countries  where  he  hath  travelled  altogether  be- 
hind him,  but  maintain  a  correspondence  by  letters  with  those 
of  his  acquaintance  which  are  of  most  worth  ;  and  let  his  travel 
appear  rather  in  his  discourse  than  in  his  apparel  or  gesture ; 
and  in  his  discourse  let  him  be  rather  advised4  in  his  answers 
than  forward  to  tell  stories:  and  let  it  appear  that  he  doth  not 
,  nge  his  country  manners  for  those  of  foreign  parts  ;  but  only 
prick  in  some  flowers  of  that  he  hath  learned  abroad  into  the 
customs  of  his  own  country 


OF  WISDOM  FOR  A  MAN'S  SELF. 

AN  ant  is  a  wise  creature  for  itself,  but  it  is  a  shrewd5  thing 
in  an  orchard  or  garden:  and  certainly  men  that  are  great  lovers 

I     A'hnii'int  is  the  old  name  for  the  loadstone. 

-     What  an;  now  called  <i(tach/'s. 

:;  I  !<•  probably  means  the  refusing  to  join  on  the  occasion  of  drinking  healths 
\\lirn  taking  wine. 

i      \>trinc.d  i.-i  circums/Hwt,  deliberate.    Often  so  in  Shakespeare. 

.-•  Shrrinf,  lien-,  is  ill  or  mischievous.  So  in  Kitty  Henry  the  Eighth,  v.,  2 : 
"  I>o  my  Lord  of  Canterbury  a  shrewd  turn,  and  he  is  your  friend  for  ever." 


588  BACON. 

of  themselves  waste  the  public.  Divide  with  reason  between 
self-love  and  society;  and  be  so  true  to  thyself  as  thou  be  not 
i'alse  to  others,  specially  to  thy  king  and  country.  It  is  a  poor 
centre  of  a  man's  actions,  himself.  It  is  right  earth:  for  that 
only  stands  fast  upon  his  own  centre  ;  whereas  all  things  that 
have  atlinity  with  the  heavens,  move  upon  the  centreof  another, 
which  they  benefit..  The  referring  of  all  to  a  man's  self  is  more 
tolerable  in  a  sovereign  prince,  because  themselves  an-  not  only 
themselves,  but  their  good  and  evil  is  at  the  peril  of  the  public 
fortune:  but  it  is  a  desperate  evil  in  a  servant  to  a  prince,  or  a 
citizen  in  a  republic  ;  for  whatsoever  affairs  pass  such  a  man's 
hands,  he  crooketh  them  to  his  own  ends,  which  must  needs  be? 
often  eccentric  to  the  ends  of  his  master  or  State:  therefore  let 
princes  or  States  choose  such  servant-  as  have  not  this  mark, 
except  they  mean  their  service  should  be  made  but  the  acces- 
sary. That  which  maketli  the  effect  more  pernicious  is,  that  all 
proportion  is  lost.  It  were  disproportion  enough  for  the  ser- 
vant's good  to  be  preferred  before  the  master's;  but  yet  it  is  a 
greater  extreme,  when  a  little  good  of  the  servant  shall  carry 
things  agaiuM  a  great  good  of  the  master's:  and  yet  that  is  tin- 
case  of  bad  oliicer>,  treasurers,  ambassadors,  generals,  and  other 
false  and  corrupt  servants  ;  which  seta  bias  upon  their  bowl,7 
of  their  own  petty  ends  and  envies,  to  the  overthrow  of  their 
master's  great  and  important  affairs.  And,  for  the  most  part, 
the  good  such  servants  receive  is  after  the  model  of  their  own 
fortune  ;  but  the  hurt  they  sell  for  that  good  is  after  the  model 
of  their  master's  fortune.  And  certainly  it  is  the  nature  of  ex- 
treme self-lovers,  as  they  will  set  a  house  on  tire,  ans  it  ^ 
but  to  roast  their  eggs:  and  yet  these  men  many  times  hold 
credit  with  their  masters  because  their  study  is  but  to  pit 
them,  and  profit  themselves  ;  and  for  either  respect  they  will 
abandon  the  good  of  their  affairs. 

Wisdom  for  a  man's  self  is,  in  many  branches  thereof,  a 
depraved  thing:  it  is  the  wisdom  of  rats,  that  will  be  sun 
leave  a  house  somewhat  before  it  fall:  it  is  the  wisdom  of  the 
fox,  that  thrusts  out  the  badger  who  digged  and  made  room  for 
him:  it  is  the  wisdom  of  crocodiles,  that  shed  tears  when  they 
would  devour.  But  that  which  is  specially  to  be  noted  is  that 
those  which  (as  Cicero  says  of  Pompey)  are  ani 

C    Bacon  adhered  to  the  old  astronomy,  which  made  the  Kartli  the  ecu; 
the  system.    The  Copernioan  sy.-tem  was  not  gem-rally  received  in  Kngland  till 
many  years  later. 

7  A  bias  is,  properly,  a  weight  placed  in  one  side  of  a  bowl,  which  deflects  it 
from  the  straight  line. 

8  Ant  for  if,  occurs  continually  in  Shakespeare. 


OF  INNOVATIONS.  580 

rivali,9  arc  many  times  unfortunate  ;  and  whereas  they  have  all 
their  time  sacrificed  to  themselves,  they  become  in  the  end 
themselves  sacrifices  to  the  inconstancy  of  fortune,  whose  wings 
they  thought  by  their  self-wisdom  to  have  pinioned. 


OF  INNOVATIONS. 

As  the  births  of  living  creatures  at  first  are  ill-shapen,  so  are 
all  innovations,  which  arc  the  births  of  time  ;  yet,  notwithstand- 
ing, as  those  that  first  bring  honour  into  their  family  are  com- 
monly more  worthy  than  most  that  succeed,  so  the  first  precedent 
(if  it  be  good)  is  seldom  attained  by  imitation:  for  ill,  to  man's 
nature  as  it  stands  perverted,  hath  a  natural  motion  strongest  in 
continuance  ;  but  good,  as  a  forced  motion,  strongest  at  first. 
Surely  every  medicine  l  is  an  innovation  ;  and  he  that  will  not 
apply  nc\v  remedies  must  expect  new  evils:  for  time  is  the 
greatest  innovator;  and  if  time  of  course  alter  things  to  the 
worse,  and  wisdom  and  counsel  shall  not  alter  them  to  the  bet- 
ter, what  shall  be  the  end  V  It  is  true  that  what  is  settled  by 
custom,  though  it  be  not  good,  yet  at  least  it  is  fit;  and  those 
things  which  have  long  gone  together  arc,  as  it  were,  confeder- 
ate within  themselves:  whereas  new  things  piece  not  so  well 
but,  though  they  help  by  their  utility,  yet  they  trouble  by  their 
inconformity ;  besides,  they  are  like  strangers,  more  admired, 
and  less  favoured.  All  this  is  true,  if  time  stood  still ;  which, 
contrariwise,  moveth  so  round,2  that  a  froward  retention  of 
custom  is  as  turbulent  a  thing  as  an  innovation  ;  and  they  that 

;ice  too  much  old  times  are  but  a  scorn  to  the  new.  It 
were  good,  therefore,  that  men  in  their  innovations  would  follow 
t!ie  example  of  time  itself,  which  indeed  innovateth  greatly,  but 
quietly,  and  by  degrees  scarce  to  be  perceived  ;  for,  otherwise, 
whatsoever  is  new  is  unlocked  for ;  and  ever  it  mends  some,  and 

other  ;  and  he  that  is  holpen4  takes  it  for  a  fortune,  and 

'.»    "  Lovers  of  themselves,  without  a  competitor." 

1     Ali'dic'uu:  and  rcmr.dy  arc  here  used  as  synonymous. 

•j  Hnunil,  a.s  applied  to  speech  or  action,  means  plain,  bold,  downright,  de- 
cidf.d.  So  I'oionius,  in  Hamlet,  says,  "  I  went  round  to  work."  But  the  word 
sometimes  appears  to  have  the  sense  of  rapid.  And  so  Addison  seems  to  use 
it:  "Sir  Roger  heard  them  on  a  round  trot";  though  here  it  may  very  well 
mean  downright  or  decided. 

'.',  To  jinir  i.-i,  properly,  to  male  less  or  worse.  So  the  Earl  of  Somerset  to 
King  James:  «•  I  only  cleave  to  that  which  is  so  little,  as  that  it  will  suflVr  no 
jmiriiif)  or  diminution."  The  word  has  long  heen  out  of  use  except  in  impair. 

4  JIo/jicii,  or  ltot/>,  is  the  old  preterite  ofhclp.  Used  continually  in  the  Psal- 
ter; often  in  Shakespeare  also. 


590  BACON. 

thanks  the  time  ;  and  he  that  is  hurt,  for  a  wrong,  and  imputeth 
it  to  the  author.  It  is  good  also  not  to  try  experiments  in  States, 
except  the  necessity  be  urgent,  or  the  utility  evident ;  and  well 
to  beware  that  it  be  the  reformation  that  draweth  on  the  change, 
and  not  the  desire  of  change  that  pretendeth  the  reformation:3 
and  lastly,  that  the  novelty,  though  it  be  not  rejected,  yet  be 
held  for  a  suspect ;  °  and,  as  the  Scripture  saith,  "  That  we  make 
a  stand  upon  the  ancient  way,  and  then  look  about  us,  and  dis- 
cover what  is  the  straight  and  right  way,  and  so  to  walk  in  it." 


OF  SEEMING  WISE. 

IT  hath  been  an  opinion,  that  the  French  are  wiser  than  they 
seem,  and  the  Spaniards  si-em  wiser  than  they  are;  but,  how- 
soever it  be  between  nations,  certainly  it  is  so  between  man  and 
man  ;  for,  as  the  apostle  saith  of  godliness,  "Ilaving  a  show  of 
godliness,  but  denying  the  power  thereof";  so  certainly  there 
are,  in  points  of  wisdom  and  sutliciencv,7  that  do  nothing  or 
little  very  solemnly;  may  no  conutu  muius*  It  is  a  ridiculous 
thing,  and  fit  for  a  satire  to  persons  of  judgment,  to  see  what 
shifts  these  formalists  have,  and  what  prospectives9  to  make 
superficies  to  seem  body,  that  hath  depth  and  bulk.  Some  are 
so  close  and  reserved,  as  they  will  not  show  their  wares  but  by 
a  dark  light,  and  seem  always  to  keep  hack  somewhat;  and 
when  they  know  within  themselves  they  speak  of  that  they  do 
not  well  know,  would  nevertheless  seem  to  others  to  know  of 
that  which  they  may  not  well  speak.  Some  help  them 
with  countenance  and  gesture,  and  are  wise  by  signs  ;  peM 
saith  of  Piso,  that  when  he  answered  him  he  fetched  one  of  his 
brows  up  to  his  forehead,  and  bent  the  other  down  to  his  chin ; 
liespondcs,  altero  adfronttin  sublato,  altero  ad  menlum  d. 
supcrcilio,  crudditatcm  tibi  non  placcrc.1  Some  think  to  bear  it 

5    For  some  capital  observations  on  this  subject,  see,  among  the  pieces  from 
J>nrke,  page  213;  also,  pages  'J.Y7— 'J.VJ. 
G    "Hold  for  a  suspect"  of  course  means  the  same  as  "held  in  suspicion," 

Shakespeare  has  a  like  usage  repeatedly.    So  in  The  Comedy  of  Errors,  iii.,  1  : 
"  You  draw  within  the  compass  of  suspect  th'  unviolated  honour  of  your  wife." 

7  Sufficiency  appears  to  be  used  here  in  the  sense  of  authority,  or  /«/.' 

So  Shakespeare,  in  Measure  for  Mcaaure,  i.,  1:  "Then  no  more  remains  but 
t'  add  sujficicncy,  as  your  worth  is  able,  and  let  them  work." 

8  "  Achieve  nothing  with  a  mighty  effort." 

!)     Prospect  ire  is  an  old  term  for  a  perspective  gla-s.     So  Daniel,  as  quoted  by 
N'ares:  "  Take  here  this  proxjicctin',  and  therein  note  and  tell  what  th< 
for  well  maye.-t.  thou  there  observe  their  shadows."    Through  such  pro.-pi-ctives 
things  were  often  made  to  M-em  very  different  from  what  they  really  wen-. 

1     "  With  one  brow  raised  lo  your  forehead,  the  other  bent  downward  . 
chin,  you  an>uer  thateruelty  delights  you  not.'' 


OF  FRIENDSHIP."  591 

by  speaking  a  great  word,  and  being  peremptory ;  and  go  on, 
and  tako  by  admittance  that  which  they  cannot  make  good. 
Some,  whatsoever  is  beyond  their  reach,  will  seem  to  despise, 
or  make  light  of  it,  as  impertinent  or  curious;2  and  sO  would 
have  their  ignorance  seem  judgment.  Some  are  never  without 
a  difference,3  and  commonly,  by  amusing  men  with  a  subtilty, 
blanch  4  the  matter ;  of  whom  A.  Gellius  saith,  Hominem  ddirum, 
qui  verbormn  minutiis  rcrum  frangit  ponderaJ*  Of  which  kind 
also  Plato,  in  his  Protagoras,  bringeth  in  Prodicus  in  scorn,  and 
maketh  him  make  a  speech  that  consisteth  of  distinctions  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end.  Generally,  such  men,  in  all  delibera- 
tions, find  ease  to  be  of  the  negative  side,  and  affect  a  credit  to 
object  and  foretell  difficulties ;  for,  when  propositions  are  de- 
nied, there  is  an  end  of  them  ;  but  if  they  be  allowed,  it  requir- 
eth  a  new  work  ;  which  false  point  of  wisdom  is  the  bane  of 
business.  To  conclude,  there  is  no  decaying  merchant,  or  in- 
ward beggar/'  hath  so  many  tricks  to  uphold  the  credit  of  their 
wealth  as  these  empty  persons  have  to  maintain  the  credit  of 
their  sufficiency.  Seeming  wise  men  may  make  shift  to  get 
opinion ;  but  let  no  man  choose  them  for  employment ;  for, 
certainly,  you  were  better  take  for  business  a  man  somewhat 
absurd  than  over-formal. 


OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

IT  had  been  hard  for  him  that  spake  it  to  have  put  more  truth 
and  untruth  together  in  few  words  than  in  that  speech,  "Who- 
soever is  delighted  in  solitude,  is  either  a  wild  beast  or  a  god"  :7 
for  it  is  most  true,  that  a  natural  and  secret  hatred  and  avcr- 
sation  towards8  society  in  any  man  hath  somewhat  of  the 
savage  beast ;  but  it  is  most  untrue  that  it  should  have  any 
character  at  all  of  the  Divine  nature,  except  it  proceed,  not  out 
of  a  pleasure  in  solitude,  but  out  of  a  love  and  desire  to  seques- 

2    Impertinent  is  irrelevant ;  and  curious  is  over-nice. 

'.\    Difference  in  the  sense  of  subtile  distinction. 

4  Blanch,  here,  ia  evade  or  elude.  So  Haoon,  again,  in  his  Henry  the  Svraith  : 
"The  judges  of  that  time  thought  it  was  a  dangerous  thing  to  admit  if*  and  a».s- 
to  qualify  the  words  of  treason,  whereby  every  man  might  express  his  malice, 
UuLMancAhia  danger."  So  too  in  Itdiquice  Wattoniance  :  "  I  suppose  you  will 
not  blanch  Paris  iu  your  way." 

.".  "A  foolish  man,  who  fritters  away  weighty  matters  by  fine-spun  trifling 
with  words." 

<;    One.  really  insolvent,  though  to  the  world  he  does  not  appear  so. 

7  The  quotation  JH  from  Ari-totlc's  Ethics. 

8  A  venation  towards  is  the  same  as  avernion  to. 


592  BACON. 

tcr  a  man's  self  for  a  higher  conversation  ;  such  as  is  found  to 

h-.ive  been  falsi-ly  and  feignedly  in  some  of  the1  heathen, —  as 
Epimenides,  the  Candian  ;  Xuma,  the  lioman  ;  Empedocles, 
the  Sicilian  ;  and  Apollonius,  of  Tyana  ;'•'  and  truly  and  really  in 
divers  of  the  ancient  hermits  and  ho!..  <>f  the  Church. 

But  little;  do  men  perceive  what  solitude  is,  and  ho\v  far  it  ex- 
tendeth  ;  for  a  crowd  is  not  company,  and  faces  are  but  a 
gallery  of  pictures,  and  talk  but  a  tinkling  cymbal,  where  there 
is  no  love.  The  Latin  adage  meeteth  v,  ith  it  a  little:  M«(I,KI 
xiititiHJu;1  because  in  a  great  town  friends  are 
scattered,  so  that  there  is  not  that  fellowship,  for  the  most 
part,  which  is  in  less  neighbourhoods:  but  we  may  go  further, 
and  ailirin  most  truly,  that  it  is  a  mere- and  miserable  solitude 
to  want,  true  friends,  without  which  the  world  is  but  a  wilder- 
ness ;  and,  even  in  this  sense  also  of  solitude,  whosoever  in  the 
frame  of  his  nature  and  aiTections  is  unlit  for  friendship,  he 
taketh  it  of  the  beast,  and  not  from  humanity. 

A  principal  fruit  of  friendship  is  the  ease  and  discha 
the  fulness  and  swellings  of  the  heart,  which  passions  of  all 
kinds  do  cause,  and  induce.  We  know  diseases  of  stoppings 
and  suffocations  an-  the  nu»t  dangerous  in  the  body  ;  and  it  is 
not  much  otherwise  in  the  mind:  you  may  take  sar/.a;:  to  open 
the  liver,  steel  to  open  the  spleen,  llower  of  sulphur  for  the 
lungs,  castoreum  for  the  brain  ;  but  no  receipt  openeth  the 
heart  but  a  true  friend,  to  whom  you  may  impart  griefs,  joys, 
fears,  hopes,  suspicions,  counsels,  and  whatsoever  lieth  upon 
the  heart  to  oppress  it,  in  a  kind  of  civil  shrift  or  confession. 

It  is  a  strange  thing  to  observe-  how  high  a  rate1  great  kings 
and  monarchs  do  set  upon  this  fruit  of  friendship  whereof  we 
speak;   so  great,  as  they  purchase  it  many  times  at  the  hazard 
of  their  own  safety  and  greatness:   for  princes,  in  regard  of  the 
distance  of  their  fortune  from  that  of  their  subjects  a<: 
vants,   cannot  gather  this  fruit,  except,  to  make  then; 
capable  thereof,  they  raise  some  persons  to  be  as  it wen 
panions,  and  almost  equals  to  themselves,  which  many  times 
Borteth  to  inconvenience.    The  modern  languages  give  unto  such 

9    Epimenides,  a  poet  of  Crete,  is  said  to  have  fallen  into  a  sleep  whic! 
lilty-seven  year.-,     lie  was  also  said  to  have  lived  %JH!>  years.     Ntuna  preU'iuled 
that  he  was  instrueted  in  the  art  of  legislation  by  the  divine  nymph  Kirer 
dwelt   in   the.  Arieian  grove.     Kmpedoeles,  the   Sicilian  philosopher,  d. 
himself  to  be  immortal,  and  to  be  able  to  cure  all  evils:  IK-  is  said  by  some  to 
have  retired  from  society,  that  his  death  might  not  be  known.     Apollonins,  <>f 
Tyana,  the  Pythagorean   philosopher,  pretended   to    miraculous   powers,  and 
after  his  death  a  temple  was  erected  to  him  at  that  place. 

1    "A  great  city  is  a  great  desert." 

'2    Mi-re,  again,  lor  absolute  or  utter.    See  page  507,  note  8. 

3    Sarza  is  the  old  name  for  sarsaparilla. 


OF  FRIENDSHIP.  593 

persons  the  name  of  favourites,  or  privadoes,  as  if  it  were  mat- 
ter of  grace  or  conversation ;  but  the  Roman  name  attaineth 
the  true  use  and  cause  thereof,  naming  them  participcscurarnui  ; 
for  it  is  that  which  tietli  the  knot:  and  wo  see  plainly  that  this 
hath  been  done,  not  by  weak  and  passionate  princes  only,  but 
by  the  wisest  and  most  politic  that  ever  reigned,  who  have 
oftentimes  joined  t:>  themselves  some  of  their  servants,  whom 
both  themselves  have  called  friends,  and  allowed  others  like- 
wise to  call  them  in  the  same  manner,  using  the  word  which  is 
received  between  private  men. 

L.  Sulla,  when  he  commanded  Rome,  raised  Pompey  (after 
surnamed  The  Great)  to  that  height  that  Pompey  vaunted  him- 
self for  Sulla's  overmatch  ;  for  when  he  had  carried  the  Consul- 
ship for  a  friend  of  his,  against  the  pursuit  of  Sulla,  and  that 
Sulla  did  a  little  resent  thereat,  and  began  to  speak  great,  Pom- 
pey turned  upon  him  again,  and  in  elYect  bade  him  be  quiet, 
for  that  more  men  adored  the  Sun  rising  than  the  Sun  setting. 
"With  Julius  ('ji'sar,  Pecimus  IJrutus  had  obtained  that  interest, 
as  he  set  him  down  in  his  testament  for  heir  in  remainder  after 
his  nephew  ;  and  this  was  the  man  that  had  power  with  him  to 
draw  him  forth  to  his  death:  for  when  Ca'sar  would  have  dis- 
charged the  Senate,  in  regard  of  some  ill  presages,  and  specially 
a  dream  of  Calpurnia,  this  man  lifted  him  gently  by  the  arm 
out  of  his  chair,  telling  him  he  hoped  he  would  not  dismiss  the 
Senate  till  his  wife  had  dreamt  a  better  dream:  and  it  seemed 
his  favour  was  so  great,  as  Antonius,  in  a  letter  which  is  re- 
cited verbatim  in  one  of  Cicero's  Philippics,  calleth  him  vcnefica, 
"vitch";  as  if  he  had  enchanted  Caesar.  Augustus  raised 
Agrippa,  though  of  mean  birth,  to  that  height,  as,  when  he  con- 
sulted with  .Miecenas  about  the  marriage  of  his  daughter  Julia, 
Ma-cenas  took  the  liberty  to  tell  him,  that  he  must  either  marry 
his  daughter  to  Agrippa,  or  take  away  his  life;  there  was  no 
third  way,  ho  had  made  him  so  great.  With  Tiberius  Caesar, 
Sejanusliad  ascended  to  that  height,  as  they  two  were  termed 
and  reckoned  as  a  pair  of  friends.  Tiberius,  in  a  letter  to  him, 
saith,  Jfcjcc  pro  amicitia  nostril  non  occuUctvi:*  and  the  whole 
Senate  dedicated  an  altar  to  Friendship,  as  to  a  goddess,  in 
ropectof  the  great  dearness  of  friendship  between  them  two. 
Tim  like,  or  more,  was  between  Septimius  Scverus  and  Plautia- 
inis  ;  for  In-  forced  his  eldest  son  to  marry  the  daughter  of  Plau- 
tianus,  and  would  often  maintain  Plautianiis  in  doing  affronts  to 
his  son  ;  and  did  write  also,  in  u  letter  to  the  Senate,  by  these 
words:  "I  love  the  man  so  well,  as  I  wish  he  may  over-live  me." 
Now,  if  these  prince*  had  been  as  a  Trajan  or  a  Marcus  Aure- 

4    «'  On  account  of  our  friendship,  I  have  not  concealed  these  things," 


594  BACON. 

lius,  a  man  might  have  thought  that  this  had  proceeded  of  an 
abundant  goodness  of  nature  ;  but  being  men  so  wise,  of  such 
strength  and  severity  of  mind,  and  so  extreme  lovers  of  them- 
selves, as  all  these  were,  it  proveth  most  plainly  that  they 
found  their  own  felicity,  though  as  great  as  ever  happened  to 
mortal  men,  but  as  an  half-piece,  except  they  might  have  a 
friend  to  make  it  entire:  and  yet,  which  is  more,  they  were 
princes  that  had  wives,  sons,  nephews ;  yet  all  these  could  not 
supply  the  comfort  of  friendship. 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  what  Comineus  observeth  of  his  first 
master,  Duke  Charles  the  Hardy,5  namely,  that  he  would  com- 
municate his  secrets  with  none  ;  and,  least  of  all,  those  secrets 
which  troubled  him  most.  "Whereupon  he  goeth  on  and  saith, 
that  towards  his  latter  time  that  closeness  did  impair  and  a  little 
perish0  his  understanding.  Surely  Comineus  might  have  made 
the  same  judgment  also,  if  it  had  pleased  him,  of  his  second 
master,  Louis  the  Eleventh,  whose  closeness  was  indeed  his 
tormentor.  The  parable 7  of  Pythagoras  is  dark,  but  true,  Cor 
ne  cdito,  "Eat  not  the  heart."  Certainly,  if  a  man  would  give  it 
a  hard  phrase,  those  that  want  friends  to  open  themselves  unto 
are  cannibals  of  their  own  hearts:  but  one  thing  is  most  admir- 
able, (wherewith  I  will  conclude  this  first  fruit  of  friendship,) 
which  is,  that  this  communicating  of  a  man's  self  to  his  friend 
works  two  contrary  effects ;  for  it  redoubleth  joys,  and  cutteth 
griefs  in  halves:  for  there  is  no  man  that  imparteth  his  joys  to 
his  friend,  but  he  joyeth  the  more  ;  and  no  man  that  imparteth 
his  griefs  to  his  friend,  but  he  grieveth  the  less.  So  that  it  is, 
in  truth,  of  operation  upon  a  man's  mind  of  like  virtue  as  the 
alchymists  used  to  attribute  to  their  stone  for  man's  body,  that 
it  worketh  all  contrary  ejffects,  but  still  to  the  good  and  benefit 
of  nature.  But  yet,  without  praying  in  aid8  of  alchymists, 
there  is  a  manifest  image  of  this  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
Nature  ;  for,  in  bodies,  union  strengthened  and  cherisheth  any 
natural  action  ;  and,  on  the  other  side,  weaken eth  and  dulleth 
any  violent  impression ;  and  even  so  is  it  of 9  minds. 

5  Charles  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  the  antagonist  of  Louis  XL  of  France. 
Comines  spent  his  early  years  at  his  Court,  but  afterwards  passed  into  tin-  ser- 
vice of  Louis  XI.  This  monarch  was  notorious  for  his  cruelty,  treachery,  ami 
dissimulation. 

G  The  use  of  perish  as  a  transitive  verh  is  not  peculiar  to  Bacon.  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher  have  it  in  The  Maitfs  Tragedy,  iv.,  1:  "  Let  not  my  sins  ;»rnWi 
your  noble  youth."  Also  in  The  Honest  Man's  fortune,  i.,  •_' :  "ilis  wants  and 
miseries  bnvcperisJi'd  his  good  face." 

7  Parable  and  proverb  were  formerly  synonymous. 

8  To  pray  In  aid  is  an  old  law  phrase  for  calling  one  in  to  help  who  has  an 
interest  iu  the  cause. 

9  O/vr&s,  as  it  still  is,  often  equivalent  to  in  respect  of. 


OF   FRIENDSHIP.  595 

The  second  fruit  of  friendship  is  healthful  and  sovereign  for 
the  understanding,  as  the  first  is  for  the  affections ;  for  friend- 
ship maketh  indeed  a  fair  day  in  the*  affections  from  storm  and 
tempests,  but  it  maketh  daylight  in  the  understanding,  out  of 
darkness  and  confusion  of  thoughts.  Neither  is  this  to  be 
understood  only  of  faithful  counsel,  which  a  man  receiveth 
from  his  friend ;  but,  before  you  come  to  that,  certain  it  is 
that,  whosoever  hath  his  mind  fraught  with  many  thoughts,  his 
wits  and  understanding  do  clarify  and  break  up  in  the  communi- 
cating and  discoursing  with  another:  he  tosseth  his  thoughts 
more  easily  ;  he  marshalleth  them  more  orderly ;  he  seeth  how 
they  look  when  they  are  turned  into  words:  linally,  he  waxeth 
wiser  than  himself  ;  and  that  more  by  an  hour's  discourse  than 
by  a  day's  meditation.  It  was  well  said  by  Themistocles  to  the 
King  of  Persia,  "That  speech  was  like  cloth  of  arras,  opened 
and  put  abroad  ;l  whereby  the  imagery  doth  appear  in  figure  ; 
whereas  in  thoughts  they  lie  but  as  in  packs."  Neither  is  this 
second  fruit  of  friendship,  in  opening  the  understanding,  re- 
strained only  to  such  friends  as  are  able  to  give  a  man  counsel, 
(they  indeed  are  best,)  but  even  without  that  a  man  learneth  of 
himself,  and  bringeth  his  own  thoughts  to  light,  and  whetteth 
his  wits  as  against  a  stone,  which  itself  cuts  not.  In  a  word,  a 
man  were  better  relate  himself  to  a  statue  or  picture,  than  to 
suffer  his  thoughts  to  pass  in  smother. 

Add  now,  to  make  this  second  fruit  of  friendship  complete, 
that  other  point  which  lieth  more  open,  and  falleth  within  vul- 
gar2 observation, —  which  is  faithful  counsel  from  a  friend. 
Heraclitus  saith  well  in  one  of  his  enigmas,  "Dry  light  is  ever 
the  best";  and  certain  it  is,  that  the  light  that  a  man  receiveth 
by  counsel  from  another  is  drier  and  purer  than  that  which 
;li  from  his  own  understanding  and  judgment;  which  is 
ever  infused  and  drenched  in  his  alt'ections  and  customs.  So  as 
there  is  as  much  difference  between  the  counsel  that  a  friend 
giveth,  and  that  a  man  giveth  himself,  as  there  is  between  the 
counsel  of  a  friend  and  of  a  flatterer  ;  for  there  is  no  such  flat- 
terer as  is  a  man's  self,  and  there  is  no  such  remedy  against 
llattery  of  a  man's  self  as  the  Mberty  of  a  friend.  Counsel  is 
of  two  sorts  ;  the  one  concerning  manners-,  the  other  concerning 
business:  for  the  first,  the  best  preservative  to  keep  the  mind 
in  health  is  the  faithful  admonition  of  a  friend.  The  calling  of 
a  man's  self  to  a  strict  account  is  a  medicine  sometimes  too 

1  That  is,  like  tapestries,  opened  aud  spread  out.    Many  of  the  tapestries  or 
hangings  formerly  used  for  lining  rooms  had  pictures  and  sentences  embroid- 
ered in  them.    This  is  characteristically  alluded  to  by  Falstaff  in  1  Henry  the 
Fourth,  iv.,  2 :  "  Slaves  as  ragged  as  Lazarus  in  tl\G  painted  cloth." 

2  Vulgar  and  common  are  used  interchangeably  by  old  writers. 


59G     -  BACON. 

piercing  and  corrosive ;  reading  good  books  of  morality  is  a 
little  flat  and  dead  ;  observing  our  faults  in  others  is  sometimes 
improper  for  our  case  ;  but  the  be.-t  receipt  (best,  I  say,  to  work 
and  best  to  take)  is  the  admonition  of  a  friend.  It  is  a  strange 
thing  to  behold  what  gross  errors  and  extreme  absurdities 
many  (especially  of  the  greater  sort)  do  commit,  for  want  of  a 
friend  to  tell  them  of  them,  to  the  great  damage  both  of  their 
fame  and  fortune  :  for,  as  St.  .James  -aith,  they  arc  as  men 
"that  look  sometimes  into  a  glass,  and  presently  forget  their 
own  shape  and  favour."  As  for  business,  a  man  may  think,  if 
he  wilJ,  that  two  eyes  see  no  more  than  one  ;  or,  that  a  game- 
ster seeth  always  more  than  a  looker-on ;  or,  that  a  man  in 
anger  is  as  wise  as  he  that  hath  said  over  the  four-and-tuenty 
letters;8  or,  that  a  musket  may  be  shot  off  as  well  upon  the 
arm  as  upon  a  rest;  and  such  other  fond4  and  high  imagina- 
tions, to  think  himself  all  in  all:  but,  when  all  is  done,  the  help 
of  good  counsel  is  that  which  setteth  business  straight:  and  if 
any  man  think  that  he  will  take  counsel,  but.it  shall  be  by 
pieces;  asking  counsel  in  one  business  of  one  man,  and  in  an- 
other business  of  another  man  ;  it  is  well,  (that  is  to  say.  ' 
perhaps,  than  if  he  asked  none  at.  all,)  but  he  runneth  two  dan- 
gers,—  one,  that  he  shall  not  be  faithfully  counselled  ;  for  it  is 
a  rare  thing,  except  it  be  from  a  perfect  and  entire  friend,  to 
have  counsel  given,  but  such  as  shall  be  bowed  and  crooked  to 
some  ends  which  he  hath  that  giveth  it  ;  the  other,  that  he  shall 
have  counsel  given,  hurtful  and  unsafe,  (though  with  good 
meaning,)  and  mixed  partly  of  mischief  and  partly  of  remedy  ; 
even  as  ii'  you  would  call  a  physician  that  is  thought  good  tor 
the  cure  of  the  disease  you  complain  of,  but  is  unacquainted 
with  your  body  ;  and  therefore  may  put  you  in  a  way  for  a  pres- 
ent cure,  but  overt hrowetli  your  health  in  some  other  kind,  and 
so  cure  the  disease,  and  kill  the  patient:  but  a  friend,  that  is 
wholly  acquainted  with  a  man's  estate, '  will  beware,  by  further- 
ing any  present  business,  how  he  dasheth  upon  other  inconven- 
ience: and  therefore  rest  not  upon  scattered  counsels;  they 
Avill  rather  distract  and  mislead  than  settle  and  direct. 

After  these  two  noble  iruits  t>f  1'ricndsiiip,  (peace  in  the  affec- 
tions and  support  of  the  judgment,)  followeth  the  last  fruit, 
which  is  like  the  pomegranate,  full  of  many  kernels  ;  I  mean 
aid,  and  bearing  a  part  in  ail  actions  and  occasions.  Here  the 
best  way  to  represent  to  lifo  the  manifold  use  of  friendship,  is 

8  Ho  alludes  to  the  recommendation  whirli  moralists  ha\ v  often  given,  that  a 
person  in  anger  should  go  through  the  alphabet  to  himself  before  he  allows 
himself  (o  t^u-ik. 

4  Fond  is  often  j\mlish  in  old  writers.    So  in  Shakespeare, passim. 

5  Estate  in  the  .sen.-e  of  M' ,•//<•,  that  i^,  conuitiun.    Often  so. 


OF  EXPENSE.  597 

to  cast  and  see  how  many  things  there  are  which  a  man  can  not  < 
do  himself  ;  and  then  it  will  appear  that  it  was  a  sparing  speech 
of  the  ancients  to  say  "that  a  friend  is  another  himself";  for 
that'1  a  friend  is  far  more  than  himself.  Men  have  their  time, 
and  die  many  times  in  desire  of  some  things  which  they  prin- 
cipally take  to  heart ;  the  bestowing  of  a  child,  the  finishing  of 
a  work,  or  the  like.  If  a  man  have  a  true  friend,  he  may  rest 
almost  secure  that  the  care  of  those  things  will  continue  after 
him  ;  so  that  a  man  hath,  as  it  were,  two  lives  in  his  desires. 
A  man  hath  a  body,  and  that  body  is  confined  to  a  place;  but 
where  friendship  is,  all  oilhvs  of  life  are,  as  it  were,  granted  to 
him  and  his  deputy  ;  for  he  may  exercise  them  by  his  friend. 
I  low  many  things  are  there,  which  a  man  cannot,  with  any  face 
or  comeliness,  say  or  do  himself  !  A  man  can  scarce  allege  his 
own  merits,  with  modesty,  much  less  extol  them  ;  a  man  cannot 
sometimes  brook  to  supplicate  or  beg,  and  a  number  of  the 
like:  but  all  these  things  are  graceful  in  a  friend's  mouth, 
which  are  blushing  in  a  man's  own.  So,  again,  a  man's  person 
hath  many  proper  relations  which  he  cannot  put  off.  A  man 
cannot  speak  t.>  his  son  but  as  a  father;  to  his  wife  but  as  a 
husband  ;  to  his  enemy  but  upon  terms  :  whereas  a  friend  may 
speak  as  the  case  requires,  and  not  as  it  sorteth7  with  the  per- 
son. But  to  enumerate  these1  things  were  endless:  I  have 
given  the  rule,  where  a  man  can  fitly  play  his  own  part;  if  he 
have  not  a  friend,  he  may  quit  the  stage. 


OF  EXPENSE. 

RICHES  are  for  spending,  and  spending  for  honour  and  good 

actions  ;   therefore  extraordinary  expense  must  be  limited  by 

the  worth  of  the  occasion  :  for  voluntary  undoing  may  be  as 

well  for  a  man's  country  as  for  the  kingdom  of  Heaven;  but 

ordinary  expense  ought  to  be  limited  by  a  man's  estate,  and 

led  with  such  regard,  as  it  be  within  his  compass  ;  and 

nject  to  deceit  and  abuse  of  servants  ;  and  ordered  to  the 

iiow,  that  the  bills  may  be  less  than  the  estimation  abroad. 

Certainly,  if  a  man  will  keep  but  of  even  hand,8  his  ordinary 

expenses  ought  to  be  but  to  the  half  of  his  receipts  ;  and  if  he 

think  to  wax  rich,  but  to  the  third  part.    It  is  no  baseness  for 

the  greatest  to  descend  and  look  into  their  own  estate.    Some 

G    Equivalent  to  because,  or  inasmuch  as.    A  very  frequent  usage. 
7     lien;  Kort  is  suit  or  a<;-oril.     So  in  Kin;/  Jli'iiry  the  Fifth,  iv.,  1,  speaking  of 
the  name  I'istol :  "  it  sorts  well  with  your  nerc.eness." 
b    "  Oi'eveu  hand  "  is  equivalent  to  in  an  equal  balance. 


508  BACON. 

forbear  it,  not  upon  negligence  alone,  but  doubting9  to  bring 
themselves  into  melancholy,  in  respect  they  shall  find  it  broken; 
but  wounds  cannot  be  cured  without  searching.  He  that  can- 
not look  into  his  own  estate  at  all  had  need  both  choose  well 
those  whom  he  employeth,  and  change  them  often  ;  for  new 
are  more  timorous  and  less  subtle.  He  that  can  look  into  his 
estate  but  seldom,  it  behoveth  him  to  turn  all  to  certainties. 
A  man  had  need,  if  he  be  plentiful  in  some  kind  of  expense,  to 
be  as  saving  again  in  some  other  :  as,1  if  he  be  plentiful  in  diet, 
to  be  saving  in  apparel ;  if  he  be  plentiful  in  the  hall,  to  be 
saving  in  the  stable,  and  the  like  ;  for  he  that  is  plentiful  in  ex- 
penses of  all  kinds  will  hardly  be  preserved  from  decay.  In 
clearing  of  a  man's  estate,  he  may  as  well  hurt  himself  in  being 
too  sudden,  as  in  letting  it  run  on  too  long  ;  for  hasty  seeing  is 
commonly  as  disadvantageable  as  interest.  Besides,  he  that 
clears  at  once  will  relapse  ;  for,  finding  himself  out  of  straits,  ho 
will  revert  to  his  customs  ;  but  he  that  cleareth  by  degrees  in- 
duceth  a  habit  of  frugality,  and  gaineth  as  well  upon  his  mind 
as  upon  his  estate.  Certainly,  who  hath  a  state  to  repair,  may 
not  despise  small  things  :  and,  commonly,  it  is  less  dishonour- 
able to  abridge  petty  charges  than  to  stoop  to  petty  getting*. 
A  man  ought  warily  to  begin  charges  which,  once  begun,  will 
continue  ;  but  in  matters  that  return  not  he  may  be  more  mag- 
nificent. 


OF  SUSPICION. 

SUSPICIONS  amongst  thoughts  are  like  bats  amongst  birds,— 
they  ever  fly  by  twilight:  certainly  they  are  to  be  repressed,  or 
at  the  least  well  guarded  ;  for  they  cloud  the  mind,  they  lose 
friends,  and  they  check2  with  business,  whereby  business  can- 
not goon  currently  and  constantly:  they  dispose  kings  to  tyr- 
anny, husbands  to  jealousy,  wise  men  to  irresolution  and 
melancholy:  they  are  defects,  not  in  the  heart,  but  in  the 
Drain;  for  they  take  place  in  the  stoutest  natures,  as  in  the 
example  of  Henry  the  Seventh  of  England.  There  was  not  a 
more  suspicious  man  nor  a  more  stout:-3  and  in  such  a  composi- 
tion they  do  small  hurt ;  for  commonly  they  are  not  admitted, 
but  with  examination,  whether  they  be  likely  or  no ;  but  in 
fearful  natures  they  gain  ground  too  fast.  There  is  nothing 
makes  a  man  suspect  much,  more  than  to  know  little  ;  and 

9  To  doubt  was  often  used  in  the  sense  of  to  fear. 

1  As  here  has  the  force  of  for  instance.    Olleii  so. 

2  That  is,  clash,  or  interfere. 

3  Stout,  in  old  language,  is  stubborn,  or,  sometimes,  haughty. 


OF   DISCOURSE.  599 

therefore  men  should  remedy  suspicion  by  procuring  to  know 
more,  and  not  to  keep  their  suspicions  in  smother.  What 
would  men  have  ?  Do  they  think  those  they  employ  and  deal 
with  are  saints?  Do  they  not  think  they  will  have  their  own 
ends,  and  be  truer  to  themselves  than  to  them?  Therefore 
there  is  no  better  way  to  moderate  suspicions,  than  to  account 
upon  such  suspicions  as  true,  and  yet  to  bridle  them  as  false: 
for  so  far  a  man  ought  to  make  use  of  suspicions  as  to  provide, 
as  if  that  should  be  true  that  he  suspects,  yet  it  may  do  him  no 
hurt.  Suspicions  that  the  mind  of  itself  gathers  are  but  buzzes  ; 
but  suspicions  that  are  artificially  nourished,  and  put  into  men's 
heads  by  the  tales  and  whisperings  of  others,  have  stings.  Cer- 
tainly, the  best  mean  to  clear  the  way  in  this  same  wood  of 
suspicions,  is  frankly  to  communicate  them  with  the  party  that 
he  suspects:  for  thereby  he  shall  be  sure  to  know  more  of  the 
truth  of  them  than  he  did  before  ;  and  withal  shall  make  that 
party  more  circumspect,  not  to  give  further  cause  of  suspicion. 
But  this  would  not  be  done  to  men  of  base  natures  ;  for  they, 
if  they  find  themselves  once  suspected,  will  never  be  true.  The 
Italian  says,  Sospetto  licentia  fede  ;*  as  if  suspicion  did  give  A 
passport  to  faith  ;  but  it  ought  rather  to  kindle  it  to  discharge 
itself. 


OF  DISCOUESE. 

SOME  in  their  discourse  desire  rather  commendation  of  wit,  in 
being  able  to  hold  all  arguments,  than  of  judgment,  in  discern- 
ii:-  what  is  true  ;  as  if  it  were  a  praise  to  know  what  might  be 
said,  and  not  what  should  be  thought.  Some  have  certain  com- 
mon places  and  themes  wherein  they  are  good,  and  want  variety ; 
which  kind  of  poverty  is  for  the  most  part  tedious,  and,  when  it  is 
once  perceived,  ridiculous.  The  honourablest  part  of  talk  is  to 
give  the  occasion  ;  and  again  to  moderate  and  pass  to  somewhat 
f«  >r  then  a  man  leads  the  dance.  It  is  good  in  discourse,  and 
h  of  conversation,  to  vary,  and  intermingle  speech  of  the 
present  occasion  with  arguments,  tales  with  reasons,  asking  of 
questions  with  telling  of  opinions,  and  jest  with  earnest ;  for  it 
is  a  dull  thing  to  tire,  and,  as  we  say  now,  to  jade  any  thing  too 
far.  As  for  jest,  there  be  certain  things  which  ought  to  be  privi- 
leged from  it,  namely,  religion,  matters  of  State,  great  persons, 
any  man's  present  business  of  importance,  and  any  case  that 
di  MTveth  pity;  yet  there  be  some  that  think  their  wits  have 
been  asleep,  except  they  dart  out  somewhat  that  is  piquant,  and 
to  the  quick.  That  is  a  vein  which  would  be  bridled :  Farce,  puer, 

4    "  Suspicion  dissolves  the  obligation  to  fidelity." 


COO  BACON. 

stimuli s,  etfortiusutere  7cm.6  And,  generally,  men  ought  to  find 
the  difference  net  ween  saltness  and  bitterness.  Certainly,  lie 
that  liuth  a  satirical  vein,  as  he  maketh  others  afraid  of  his  wit, 
so  he  had  need  be  afraid  of  others'  memory.  He  that  quest  ion- 
eth  much  shall  learn  much,  and  content  much,  but  especially  if 
he  apply  his  questions  to  the  skill  of  the  persons  whom  lie 
asketh  ;  for  he  shall  give  them  occasion  to  please  themselves  in 
speaking,  and  himself  shall  continually  gather  knowledge:  but 
let  his  questions  not  be  troublesome,  for  that  is  fit  for  a  poser  ; 6 
and  let  him  be  sure  to  leave  other  men  their  turns  to  speak: 
nay,  if  there  be  any  that  would  reign  and  take  up  all  the  time, 
let  him  find  means  to  take  them  off,  and  to  bring  others  on,  as 
musicians  use  to  do  with  those  that  dance  too  long  galliards.7 
If  you  dissemble  sometimes  your  knowledge  of  that  you  are 
thought  to  know,  you  shall  be  thought,  another  time,  to  know 
that  you  know  not.  Speech  of  a  man's  self  ought  to  be  seldom, 
and  well  chosen.  I  knew  one  was  wont  to  say  in  scorn,  "lie 
must  needs  be  a  wi-e  man,  he  speaks  so  much  of  himself":  and 
there  is  but  one  case  wherein  a  man  may  commend  himself 
with  good  grace,  and  that  is  in  commending  virtue  in  another, 
especially  if  it  be  such  a  virtue  whereunto  himself  pivtcmleth. 
Speech  of  touch8  towards  others  should  be  sparingly  used  ;  for 
discourse  ought  to  be  as  a  field,  without  coming  home  to  any 
man.  I  knew  two  noblemen,  of  the  west  part  of  England, 
whereof  the  one  was  given  to  scoff,  but  kept  ever  royal  cheer  in 
hi;  house;  the  other  would  ask  of  those  that  had  been  at  the 
other's  table,  "Tell  truly,  was  there  never  a  flout  or  dry  blow 
given ? "  To  which  the  guest  would  answer,  "Such  and  such  a 
thing  passed."  The  lord  would  say,  "I  thought  he  would  mar 
a  good  dinner."  Discretion  of  speech  is  more  than  eloquence  ; 
and  to  speak  agreeably  to  him  with  whom  we  deal,  is  more  than 
to  speak  in  good  words,  or  in  good  order.  A  good  continued 
speech,  without  a  good  speech  of  interlocution,  shows  slowness  ; 
and  a  good  reply,  or  second  speech,  without  a  good  settled 
speech,  showeth  shallowness  and  weakness.  As  we  B 
beasts,  that  those  that  are  weakest  in  the  course,  are  yet  nim- 
blest in  the  turn ;  as  it  is  betwixt  the  greyhound  and  the 
hare.  To  use  too  many  circumstances,  ere  one  come  to  the 
matter,  is  wearisome  ;  to  use  none  at  all,  is  blunt. 

5  "  Boy,  spare  the  spur,  and  more  tightly  hold  the  reins." 

6  A  poser  is  one  who  tests  or  examines. 

7  The  galliavd  was  a  sprightly  dance  much  used  iu  Bacon's  time. 

8  Personal  hits,  or  glances  at  particular  individuals . 


OF  KICHES.  601 


OF  KICHES. 

I  CANNOT  call  riches  better  than  the  baggage  of  virtue  :  the 
Roman  word  is  better,  impedimenta;  for  as  the  baggage  is  to  an 
army,  so  is  riches  to  virtue  ;  it  cannot  be  spared  nor  left  behind, 
but  it  hindereth  the  march  ;  yea,  and  the  care  of  it  sometimes 
loseth  or  disturbeth  the  victory.    Of  great  riches  there  is  no 
real  use,  except  it  be  in  the  distribution  ;  the  rest  is  but  conceit: 
so  saith  Solomon,  "  Where  much  is,  there  are  many  to  consume 
it ;  and  what  hath  the  owner  but  the  sight  of  it  with  his  eyes?  " 
The  personal  fruition  in  any  man  cannot  reach  to  feel  great 
riches :  there  is  a  custody  of  them,  or  a  power  of  dole  and  dona- 
tive of  them,  or  a  fame  of  them,  but  no  solid  use  to  the  owner. 
Do  you  not  see  what  feigned  prices  are  set  upon  little  stones 
and  rarities?   and  what  works  of  ostentation  are  undertaken, 
because9  there  might  seem  to  be  some  use  of  great  riches? 
But  then  you  will  say,  they  may  be  of  use  to  buy  men  out  of 
dangers  or  troubles  ;  as  Solomon  saith,  "Riches  are  as  a  strong- 
hold in  the  imagination  of  the  rich  man  " :  but  this  is  excellently 
expressed,  that  it  is  in  imagination,  and  not  always  in  fact ;  for, 
certainly,   great  riches  have  sold  more  men  than  they  have 
bought  out.    Seek  not  proud  riches,  but  such  as  thou  mayest  get 
justly,   use  soberly,   distribute  cheerfully,   and  leave  content- 
edly: yet  have  no  abstract  nor  friarly  contempt  of  them  ;  but 
distinguish,  as  Cicero  saith  well  of  Rabirius  Posthumus,  In 

fnn/>}/ficandce  appwcbat,  non  avaritice  prcedam,  sed  in- 
Ixnutatl  qiiceri.1  Hearken  also  to  Solomon,  and  be- 
ware ol'  hasty  gathering  of  riches:  Qui  festinat  ad  divitias,  non 
fnt  inxunx.'2  The  poets  feign,  that  when  Plutus  (which  is  riches) 
is  sent  from  Jupiter,  he  limps,  and  goes  slowly;  but  when  he 
is  sent  from  Pluto,  he  runs,  and  is  swift  of  foot ;  meaning,  that 
riches  gotten  by  good  means  and  just  labour  pace  slowly;  but 
when  they  come  by  the  death  of  others,  (as  by  the  course  of 
inheritance,  testaments,  and  the  like,)  they  come  tumbling  upon 
a  man:  but  it  might  be  applied  likewise  to  Pluto,  taking  him 
for  the  Devil ;  for  when  riches  come  from  the  Devil,  (as  by 
fraud  and  oppression,  and  unjust  means,)  they  come  upon 
speed.  The  ways  to  enrich  are  many,  and  most  of  them  foul: 
parsimony  is  one  of  the  best,  and  yet  is  not  innocent;  for  it 
withhokleth  men  from  works  of  liberality  and  charity.  The 
improvement  of  the  ground  is  the  most  natural  obtaining  of 

II  Hero  because  is  in  order  that.    See  page  573,  note  1. 

1  "  In  his  anvicfy  to  increase  his  fort  tine,  it  was  evident  that  not  the  gratifi- 
cation ofavarire  was  nought,  but  the  means  of  doing  good." 

2  "  lie  who  hastens  to  riches  will  not  be  without  guilt." 


602  BACOX. 

riches,  for  it  is  our  great  mother's  blessing,  the  Earth  ;  but  it  is 
slow ;  and  yet,  where  men  of  great  wealth  do  stoop  to  hus- 
bandry, it  multiplieth  riches  exceedingly.  I  knew  a  nobleman 
in  England  that  had  the  greatest  audits :;  of  any  man  in  my 
time, —  a  great  grazier,  a  great  sheep-master,  a  great  timber- 
man,  a  great  collier,  a  great  corn-man,  a  great  lead-man,  and  so 
of  iron,  and  a  number  of  the  like  points  of  husbandry ;  so  as  the 
earth  seemed  a  sea  to  him  in  respect  of  the  perpetual  impor- 
tation. It  was  truly  observed  by  one,  that  himself  "came  very 
hardly  to  a  little  riches,  and  very  easily  to  great  riches";  for 
when  a  man's  stock  is  come  to  that,  that  he  can  expect  the 
prime  of  markets,4  and  overcome6  those  bargains  which  for 
their  greatness  are  few  men's  money,  and  be  partner  in  the 
industries  of  younger  men,  he  cannot  but  increase  mainly.0 
The  gains  of  ordinary  trades  and  vocations  are  honest,  and 
furthered  by  two  things,  chiefly,  —  by  diligence,  and  by  a  good 
name  for  good  and  fair  dealing  ;  but  the  gains  of  bargains  are 
of  a  more  doubtful  nature,  when  men  shall  wait  upon  others' 
necessity;  broke7  by  servants  and  instruments  to  draw  them 
on  ;  put  off  others  cunningly  that  would  be  better  chapmen,8 
and  the  like  practices,  which  are  crafty  and  naught:  as  for  the 
chopping9  of  bargains,  when  a  man  buys  not  to  hold,  but  to  sell 
over  again,  that  commonly  grindeth  double,  both  upon  the 
seller  and  upon  the  buyer.  Sharings  do  greatly  enrich,  if  the 
hands  be  well  chosen  that  are  trusted.  Usury  is  the  certainest 
means  of  gain,  though  one  of  the  worst ;  as  that  whereby  a  man 
doth  eat  .his  bread,  in  suclore  vultus  alicni  ;l  and,  besides,  doth 
plough  upon  Sundays:  but  yet,  certain  though  it  be,  it  hath 
flaws ;  for  that  the  scriveners  and  brokers  do  value  unsound 

3  Audit  here  means  a  rent-roll,  or  account  of  income. 

4  That  is,  wait  till  the  markets  are  at  their  best.    The  use  of  expect  for  await 
was  common.    So  in  Hebrews,  x.,  13:  "  Expecting,  till  his  enemies  be  made-  his 
footstool."    And  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  v.,  1:  "Sweet  soul,  let's  in,  and 
there  expect  their  coming." 

5  Overcome  in  the  sense  of  overtake,  or  come  upon. 

6  Here  mainly  is  greatly.    So  in  Hamlet,  iv.,  7 :  "  As  by  your  safety,  greatness, 
wisdom,  all  things  else,  you  mainly  wore  stirr'd  up." 

7  To  broke,  as  the  word  is  here  used,  is  to  </<"//  meanly,  to  pander,  or  employ 
pandera.    So  in  Alts  Well  that  Ends   Well,  iii.,  :> :  '•  lie  Itrokcs  with  all  that  can 
in  such  a  suit  corrupt  the  tender  honour  of  a  maid." 

8  Chapmen  for  jwrchasers,  or  traders;  the  old  meaning  of  the  word.    So  in 
Troilns  and  Crcssida,  iv.,  1:  "You  do  as  chapmen  do,  dispraise  the  thing  that 
you  desire  to  buy." 

9  To  chop,  as  the  word  is  here  used,  is  to  change,  to  traffic,  as  in  buying  to 
sell  again.    Hence  the  phrase  "a  chopping  mind,"  or  "a  chopping  sea."    So 
Pryden,  in  The  Hind  and  Panther:  "Every  hour  your  form  is  chopp'd  ami 
changed,  like  winds  before  a  storm." 

1    "  In  the  sweat  of  another's  brow." 


OF   RICHES.  603 

men  to  serve  their  own  turn.2  The  fortune  in  being  the  first  in 
an  invention,  or  in  a  privilege,  doth  cause  sometimes  a  wonder- 
ful overgrowth  in  riches,  as  it  was  with  the  first  sugar-man  8  in 
the  Canaries:  therefore,  if  a  man  can  play  the  true  logician,  to 
have  as  well  judgment  as  invention,  he  may  do  great  matters, 
especially  if  the  times  be  fit.  He  that  resteth  upon  gains  cer- 
tain shall  hardly  grow  to  great  riches;  and  he  that  puts  all 
upon  adventures  doth  oftentimes  break  and  come  to  poverty:  it 
is  good,  therefore,  to  guard  adventures  with  certainties  that 
may  uphold  losses.  Monopolies,  and  coemption  of  wares  for 
re-sale,  where  they  are  not  restrained,  are  great  means  to  en- 
rich ;  especially  if  the  party  have  intelligence  what  things  are 
like  to  come  into  request,  and  so  store  himself  beforehand. 
Riches  gotten  by  service,  though  it  be  of  the  best  rise,  yet  when 
they  are  gotten  by  flattery,  feeding  humours,  and  other  servile 
conditions,  they  may  be  placed  amongst  the  worst.4  As  for 
fishing  for  testaments  and  executorships,  (as  Tacitus  saith  of 
Seneca,  Testamenla  et  orbos  tanquum  indagine  capi,**)  it  is  yet 
worse,  by  how  much  men  submit  themselves  to  meaner  persons 
than  in  service. 

Believe  not  much  them  that  seem  to  despise  riches,  for  they 
despise  them  that  despair  of  them  ;  and  none  worse  when  they 
come  to  them.  Be  not  penny-wise  :  riches  have  wings,  and 
sometimes  they  fly  away  of  themselves,  sometimes  they  must 
be  set  flying  to  bring  in  more.  Men  leave  their  riches  either 
to  their  kindred  or  to  the  public  ;  and  moderate  portions  pros- 
per host  in  both.  A  great  state  left  to  an  heir  is  as  a  lure  to  all 
the  birds  of  prey  round  about  to  seize  on  him,  if  he  be  not  the 
better  stablished  in  years  and  judgment:  likewise,  glorious6 
gifts  and  foundations  are  like  sacrifices  without  salt ;  and  but 
the  painted  sepulchres  of  alms,  which  soon  will  putrefy  and 
corrupt  inwardly.  Therefore  measure  not  thine  advancements7 
by  quantity,  but  frame  them  by  measure  :  and  defer  not  char- 
ities till  death  ;  for,  certainly,  if  a  man  weigh  it  rightly,  he  that 
doth  so  is  rather  liberal  of  another  man's  than  of  his  own. 

2  That  is,  as  crafty  penmen  and  panders  falsely  represent  knaves  as   trust- 
worthy, in  order  to  cntc.h  victims.    Sec  note  7,  just  above. 

3  The  flrst  planters  of  the  sngar-cane. 

4  This  is  obscure;  but  the  meaning  may  come   something  thus:  "Riches 
gotten  by  service,  though  the  service  be  of  the  highest  price,  or  of  the  most  lu. 
crative  sort,  yet,  if  it  proceed  by  sinister  arts  and  base  compliances,  are  to  be 
reckoned  .-iinong  the  worst."    This  use  of  rise  seems  odd,  but  is  the  same  at 
bottom  as  in  the  phrase,  "  a  rise  of  value,"  or  "  a  rise  of  prices." 

5  "  Wills  and  childless  parents,  taken  as  with  a  net." 

6  Glorious  in  the  sense  of  the  Latin  gloriosus  ;  that  is,  boastful,  or  ostenta- 
tious.   A  frequent  usage. 

7  Advances  ;  gifts  of  money  or  property. 


604  is  A  cox. 


'   OF  NATURE  IX  MEX. 

NATURE  is  often  hidden,  sometimes  overcome,  seldom  extin- 
guished. Force  maketh  nature  more  violent  in  the  return, 
doctrine  and  discourse  maketh  nature'  less  importune/  but  cus- 
tom only  doth  alter  and  subdue  nature.  He  that  seeketh  vic- 
tory over  his  nature,  let  him  not  set  himself  too  great  nor  too 
small  tasks  ;  for  the  first  will  make  him  dejected  by  often  fail- 
ings, and  the  second  will  make  him  a  small  proceeder,  though 
by  often  prevailing*.  And,  at  the  first,  let  him  practise  with 
helps,  as  swimmers  do  with  bladders  or. rushes;  but,  after  a 
time,  let  him  practise  with  disadvantages,  as  dancers  do  with 
thick  shoes;  for  it  breeds  great  perfection  if  the  practice  be 
harder  than  the  use.  Where  nature  is  mighty,  and  therefore 
the  victory  hard,  the  degrees  had  need  be,  lir.-t  to  stay  and  ar- 
rest nature  in  time  ;  (like  to  him  that  would  say  over  the  four- 
and-twenty  letters  when  he  was  angry  :>  then  to  go  le>s  in 
quantity  ;  as  if  one  should,  in  forbearing  wine,  come  from  drink- 
ing healths  to  a  draught  at  a  meal  ;  and,  lastly,  to  discontinue 
altogether:  but  if  a  man  have  the  fortitude  and  resolution  to 
enfranchise  himself  at  once,  that  is  the  best : 

"Opthmis  il!e  animi  vindex  la'dentia  pert  us 
Vincuhi  (|ui  rupit,  dedoluitquc  serael."0 

Xeither  is  the  ancient  rule  amiss,  to  bend  nature  as  a  wand  to 
a  contrary  extreme,  whereby  to  set  it  right:  understanding  it 
where  the  contrary  extreme  is  no  vice.  Let  not  a  man  force  a 
habit  upon  himself  with  a  perpetual  continuance,  but  with 
some  intermission;  for  the  pause  reinforceth  the  new  onset: 
and  if  a  man  that  is  not  perfect  be  ever  in  practice,  he  shall  as 
well  practise  his  errors  as  his  abilities,  and  induce  one  habit  of 
both  ;  and  there  is  no  means  to  help  this  but  by  seasonable  in- 
termissions. But  let  not  a  man  trust  his  victory  over  his  nature 
too  far,  for  nature  will  lie  buried  a  great  time,  and  yet  revive 
upon  the  occasion  or  temptation;  like  as  it  was  with  ^Esop's 
damsel,  turned  from  a  cat  to  a  woman,  who  sat  very  demurely 
at  the  board's  end  till  a  mouse  ran  before  her:  therefore  let  a 
man  either  avoid  the  occasion  altogether,  or  put  himself  often 
to  it,  that  he  may  be  little  moved  with  it.  A  man's  nature  is 
best  perceived  in  privateness,  for  there  is  no  affectation  ;  in 
passion,  for  that  putteth  a  man  out  of  his  precepts  ;  and  in 
a  new  case  or  experiment,  for  there  custom  leaveth  him.  They 

8  Importune  for  importunate ;  that  is.  troublesome. 

9  "Ho  is  the  best  assertor  of  the  soul,  who  bin-Ms  the  bonds  that  pall  him, 
and  grieves  it  out  at  ont;c."    The  quotation  is  from  Ovid's  Remedy  for  Love. 


OF  CUSTOM   AXD  EDUCATION.  605 

are  happy  men  whose  natures  sort  with  their  vocations ;  other- 
wise they  may  say,  Multum  incola  fnit  anima  mca,1  when  they 
converse  in  those  things  they  do  not  affect.2  In  studies,  what- 
soever a  man  commandeth  upon  himself,  let  him  set  hours  for 
it ;  but  whatsoever  is  agreeable  to  his  nature,  let  him  take  no 
care  for  any  set  times  ;  for  his  thoughts  will  fly  to  it  of  them- 
selves, so  as  the  spaces  of  other  business  or  studies  will  suffice. 
A  man's  nature  runs  either  to  herbs  or  weeds ;  therefore  let 
him  seasonably  water  the  one,  and  destroy  the  other. 


OF  CUSTOM  AND  EDUCATION. 

MEN'S  thoughts  are  much  according  to  their  inclination; 
their  discourse  and  speeches  according  to  their  learning  and 
infused  opinions  ;  but  their  deeds  are  after8  as  they  have  been 
accustomed:  and  therefore,  as  Machiavel  well  noteth,  (though 
in  an  evil-favoured  instance,)  there  is  no  trusting  to  the  force  of 
nature,  nor  to  the  bravery  of  words,  except  it  be  corroborate  by 
eu^tom.  His  instance  is,  that,  for  the  achieving  of  a  desperate 
conspiracy,  a  man  should  not  rest  upon  the  fierceness  of  any 
man's  nature,  or  his  resolute  undertakings,  but  take  such  a  one 
as  hath  had  his  hands  formerly  in  blood:  but  Machiavel  knew 
not  of  a  Friar  Clement,  nor  a  llavillac,*  nor  a  Jaureguy,6  nor  a 
JJaltazar  Gerard;6  yet  his  rule  holdeth  still,  that  nature,  nor 
•augment  of  words,  are  not  so  forcible  as  custom.  Only 
superstition  is  now  so  well  advanced,  that  men  in  the  first  blood 
are  us  firm  as  butchers  by  occupation ;  and  votary  resolution7 
j*  mado  equipollent  to  custom,  even  in  matter  of  blood.  In 
other  things,  the  predominancy  of  custom  is  everywhere  visi- 
ble, insomuch  as  u  man  would  wonder  to  hear  men  profess, 
protest,  engage,  give  great  words,  and  then  do  just  as  they  have 
done  before,  as  if  they  were  dead  images  and  engines,  moved 
only  by  the  wheels  of  custom.  We  see  also  the  reign  or  tyr- 
anny of  custom,  what  it  is.  The  Indians  (I  mean  the  sect  of 

1  "  My  soul  has  long  been  a  sojourncr." 

2  That  is, "  when  their  course  of  life  is  in  those  things  which  they  do  not  like" 
Jl'-n-  the  verb  converse  has  the  same  sense  us  the  substantive  in  Philippians,  i., 
27 :  "  Let  your  conversation  be  us  becometh  the  Gospel  of  Christ." 

3  A  good  instance  of  after  used  in  the  sense  of  according. 

4  The  assassin  of  Henry  tiie  Fourth  of  France,  in  KJ10. 

.')    Hi-,  attempted  to  assassinate  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  and  wounded  him 
severely.    Philip  tlie  Second,  in  1">82,  set  a  price  upon  the  Prince's  head. 

6  lie  assassinated  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  l.VU;  a  crime  which  he  ia  sup- 
I  to  have  meditated  for  six  years. 

7  A  resolution  confirmed  and  consecrated  by  a  solemn  vow. 


606  BACOX. 

their  wise  men)  Jay  themselves  quietly  upon  a  stack  of  wood, 
and  so  sacrifice  themselves  by  fire:  nay,  the  wives  strive  to  be 
burned  with  the  corpses  of  their  husbands.  The  lads  of  Sparta, 
of  ancient  time,  were  wont  to  be  scoured  upon  the  altar  of 
Diana,  without  so  much  as  queching.8  I  remember,  in  the  be- 
ginning of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  of  England,  an  Irish  rebel, 
condemned,  put  up  a  petition  to  the  deputy  that  he  might  be 
hanged  in  a  withe,  and  not  in  a  halter,  because  it  had  been  so 
used  with  former  rebels.  There  be  monks  in  Russia  for  pen- 
ance, that  will  sit  a  whole  night  in  a  vessel  of  water,  till  they  be 
engaged  with  hard  ice. 

Many  examples  may  be  put  of  the  force  of  custom,  both  upon 
mind  and  body  ;  therefore,  since  custom  is  the  principal  magis- 
trate of  man's  life,  let  men  by  all  means  endeavour  to  obtain 
good  customs.  Certainly,  custom  is  most  perfect  when  it  be- 
ginneth  in  young  years:  this  we  call  education,  which  is,  in 
effect,  but  an  early  custom.  So  we  see,  in  languages,  the  tongue 
is  more  pliant  to  all  expressions  and  sounds,  the  joints  are 
more  supple  to  all  feats  of  activity  and  motions,  in  youth  than 
afterwards  ;  for  it  is  true,  that  late  learners  cannot  so  well  take 
the  ply,'1  except  it  be  in  some  minds  that  have  not  suffered 
themselves  to  fix,  but  have  kept  themselves  open  and  prepared 
to  receive  continual  amendment,  which  is  exceeding  rare:  but 
if  the  force  of  custom,  simple  and  separate,  be  great,  the  force 
of  custom,  copulate  and  conjoined  and  collegiate,  is  far  greater; 
for  there  example  teacheth,  company  comforteth,1  emulation 
quickeneth,  glory  raiseth  ;  so  as  in  such  places  the  force  of  cus- 
tom is  in  his2  exaltation.3  Certainly,  the  great  multiplication 
of  virtues  upon  human  nature  resteth  upon  societies  well  or- 
dained and  disciplined  ;  for  commonwealths  and  good  govern- 
ments do  nourish  virtue  grown,  but  do  not  much  mend  the 
seeds:  but  the  misery  is,  that  the  most  effectual  means  are  now 
applied  to  the  ends  least  to  be  desired. 

8  To  quech,  or  to  quick,  is  an  old  word  for  to  tnoi'e,  to  stir,  to  flinch. 

9  Ply  is  bent,  turn,  or  direction.    So  used  by  Macaulay :  "  The  Czar's  mind 
had  taken  a  strange /%,  which  it  retained  to  the  last." 

1  To  comfort  is  here  used  in  its  original  sense,  to  make  strong.    So  in  the 
Litany :  "  That  it  may  please  Thee  to  con^fort  and  help  the  weak-hearted." 

2  His  for  its,  referring  to  custom;  its  not  being  then  an   aceepted  word. 
Shakespeare  and  the  English  Bible  are  lull  of  like  instances;  as,  "if  the  salt 
have  lost  his  savour,"  and  "  the  fruit-tree  yielding  fruit  alter  his  kind." 

3  Exaltation  is  here  used  in  its  old  astrological  sense ;  a  planet  being  said  to 
be  in  its  exaltation  when  it  was  in  the  sign  where  its  influence  was  supposed  to 
be  the  strongest. 


OF  YOUTH  AtfD  AGE.  607 


OF  YOUTH  AND  AGE. 

A  MAN  that  is  young  in  years  may  be  old  in  hours,  if  he  have 
lost  no  time ;  but  that  happeneth  rarely.  Generally,  youth  is 
like  the  first  cogitations,  not  so  wise  as  the  second,  for  there  is 
a  youth  in  thoughts,  as  well  as  in  ages  ;  and  yet  the  invention 
of  young  men  is  more  lively  than  that  of  old,  and  imaginations 
stream  into  their  minds  better,  and,  as  it  were,  more  divinely. 
Natures  that  have  much  heat,  and  great  and  violent  desires  and 
perturbations,  are  not  ripe  for  action  till  they  have  passed  the 
meridian  of  their  years  ;  as  it  was  with  Julius  Csesar  and  Septi- 
mius  Severus,  of  the  latter  of  whom  it  is  said,  Juventutem  eyit 
erroribus,  imo  furoribus  plcnam  ;4  and  yet  he  was  the  ablest  em- 
peror, almost,  of  all  the  list:  but  reposed  natures  may  do  well 
in  youth,  as  it  is  seen  in  Augustus  Caesar,  Cosmos  duke  of  Flor- 
ence, Gaston  de  Foix,5  and  others.  On  the  other  side,  heat  and 
vivacity  in  age  is  an  excellent  composition  for  business.  Young 
men  are  fitter  to  invent  than  to  judge,  fitter  for  execution  than 
for  counsel,  and  fitter  for  new  projects  than  for  settled  busi- 
ness ;  for  the  experience  of  age,  in  things  that  fall  within  the 
compass  of  it,  directeth  them  ;  but  in  new  things  abuseth  them. 
The  errors  of  young  men  are  the  ruin  of  business ;  but  the 
errors  of  aged  men  amount  but  to  this,  that  more  might  have 
been  done,  or  sooner. 

Young  men,  in  the  conduct  and  manage  of  actions,  embrace 
more  than  they  can  hold ;  stir  more  than  they  can  quiet ;  fly 
to  the  end,  without  consideration  of  the  means  and  degrees ; 
pursue  some  few  principles  which  they  have  chanced  upon, 
absurdly ;  care  not  to  innovate,6  which  draws  unknown  incon- 
nces  ;  use  extreme  remedies  at  first,  and,  that  which  doub- 
leth  all  errors,  will  not  acknowledge  or  retract  them ;  like  an 
unready  horse,  that  will  neither  stop  nor  turn.  Men  of  age 
object  too  much,  consult  too  long,  adventure  too  little,  repent 
too  soon,  and  seldom  drive  business  home  to  the  full  period, 
but  content  themselves  with  a  mediocrity  of  success.  Certainly 
it  is  good  to  compound  employments  of  both  ;  for  that  will  be 
good  for  the  present,  because  the  virtues  of  either  age  may  cor- 
rect the  defects  of  both  ;  and  good  for  succession,  that  young 
men  may  be  learners,  while  men  in  age  are  actors  ;  and,  lastly, 
good  for  extern  accidents,  because  authority  followeth  old  men, 

4  "  His  youth  was  full  of  errors,  and  even  of  frantic  passions." 

5  A  nephew  of  Louis  the  Twelfth  :  he  commanded  the  French  armies  in  Italy 
against  tin;  Spaniards,  and  was  killed  in  the  battle  of  Ravenna,  in  1512. 

(',  That  is,  are  not  cautious  in  innovating,  or  are  not  careful  how  they  inno- 
vate. This  use  of  the  infinitive  was  very  common. 


COS  BACON. 

and  favour  and  popularity  youth:  but,  for  the  moral  part,  per- 
haps youth  will  have  the  preemineii  fC  hath  for  the 
politic.  A  certain  rabbin,  upon  the  text,  "Your  young  men 
shall  see  visions,  and  your  old  men  shall  dream  dreams,"  infer- 
reth  that  young  men  arc  admitted  nearer  to  God  than  old,  be- 
cause vision  is  a  clearer  revelation  than  a  dream;  and,  certainly, 
the  more  a  man  drinketh  of  the  world,  the  more  it  intoxicateth  ; 
and  age  doth  profit  rather  in  the  powers  of  understanding  than 
in  the  virtues  of  the  will  and  affections.  There  In-  some  have 
an  over-early  ripeness  in  their  years,  which  fadeth  betimes: 
these  are,  first,  such  as  have  brittle  wits,  the  edge  whereof  is 
soon  turned  ;  such  as  was  Ib-imogrnes7  the  rhetorician,  whose 
books  are  exceeding  subtile,  who  afterwards  waxed  stupid:  a 
second  sort  is  of  those  that  have  some  natural  dispositions, 
which  have  better  grace  in  youth  than  in  age  :  such  as  is  a  llu- 
ent  and  luxuriant  speech,  which  becomes  youth  well,  but  not 
age:  so  Tully  saith  of  Ilortensius,  !<}<  ,,i  mnmlmt,  >i«/> 
decebat:8  the  third  is  of  such  as  take  too  high  a  strain  at  the 
first,  and  are  magnanimous  more  than  tract  of  years  can  uphold; 
as  was  Scipio  Africanus,  of  whom  L ivy  saith,  in  effect,  / 
primis  (.rdi'luDit.* 


OF  BEAUTY. 

VIRTUE  is  like  a  rich  stone,  best  plain  set  ;  and  surely  virtue 
is  best  in  a  body  that  is  comely,  though  not  of  delicate  feature*, 
and  that  hath  rather  dignity  of  presence  than  beauty  of  aspect  ; 
neither  is  it  almost1  seen  that  very  beautiful  persons  are  other- 
wise of  great  virtue,  as  if  nature  were  rather  busy  not  to  err 
than  in  labour  to  produce  excellency  ;  and  then-fore  they  prove 
accomplished,  but  not  of  great  spirit ;  and  study  rather  behav- 
iour than  virtue.  But  this  holds  not  always;  for  Augustus 
Caesar,  Titus  Vespasianus,  Philip  le  Bel  of  France,  Edward  the 
Fourth  of  England.  Alcibiades  of  Athens,  Ismael  the  Sophy  of 
Persia,  were  all  high  and  great  spirits,  and  yet  the  most  beauti- 
ful men  of  their  times.  In  beauty,  that  of  favour  is  more  than 
that  of  colour,  and  that  of  decent  and  gracious- motion  more 
than  that  of  favour.  That  is  the  best  part  of  beauty  which 

7  He  lived  in  the  second  century  after  Christ,  and  i.s  said  to  have  ' 
memory  at  the  age  <>l 'twenty-five. 

8  "  He  remained  the  same,  but  the  same  was  no  longer  becoming  to  him." 

9  "  His  last  deeds  lell  short  of  the  lirst." 

1  Almost,  here,  has  the  ior«v  of  </<  ncnil/i/.    The  usage  was  not  uneonmum. 

2  Here  decent  und  gracious  are  becoming  and  graceful. 


OF  DEFORMITY.  GOO 

a  picture  cannot  express ;  no,  nor  the  first  sight  of  the  life. 
There  is  no  excellent  beauty  that  hath  not  some  strangeness  in 
the  proportion.  A  man  cannot  tell  whether  Apelles  or  Albert 
Durer  were  the  more3  trifler;  whereof  the  one  would  make  a 
personage  by  geometrical  proportions,  the  other,  by  taking  the 
best  parts  out  of  divers  faces  to  make  one  excellent.  Such  per- 
sonages, I  think,  would  please  nobody  but  the  painter  that  made 
them;  not  but  I  think  a  painter  may  make  a  better  face  than 
ever  was  ;  but  he  must  do  it  by  a  kind  of  felicity,  (as  a  musician 
t  hat  maketh  an  excellent  air  in  music,)  and  not  by  rule.  A  man 
shall  see  faces  that,  if  you  examine  them  part  by  part,  you  shall 
lind  never  a  good;  and  yet  all  together  do  well.  If  it  be  true 
that  the  principal  part  of  beauty  is  in  decent  motion,  certainly 
it  is  no  marvel  though  persons  in  years  seem  many  times  more 
amiable:  Pulchrorum  ((Kdininn^  jtnlt-hc.r:*  for  no  youth  can  be 
comely  but  by  pardon,  and  considering  the  youth  as  to  make 
up  the  comeliness.  Beauty  is  as  summer-fruits,  which  are  easy 
to  corrupt,  and  cannot  last ;  and,  for  the  most  part,  it  makes  a 
dissolute  youth,  and  an  age  a  little  out  of  countenance  ;  but  yet 
certainly,  again,  if  it  light  well,  it  maketh  virtues  shine,  and 
vices  blush. 


OF  DEFORMITY. 

DEFORMED  persons  are  commonly  even  with  Nature  ;  for  as 
Xature  hath  done  ill  by  them,  so  do  they  by  Nature,  being  for 
the  most  part  (as  the  Scripture  saith)  "void  of  natural  affection" : 
and  so  they  have  their  revenge  of  Nature.    Certainly  there  is  a 
:it  1  iet \veen  the  body  and  the   mind,  and  where  Nature 
erreth  in  the  one,  she  ventureth  in  the  other:  Ubi peccat  in  uno, 
''ifiir  in  altcro:  but,  because  there  is  in  man  an  election 
touching  the  frame  of  his  mind,  and  a  necessity  in  the  frame  of 
body,  the  stars  of  natural  inclination  are  sometimes  obscured 
by  the  Sun  of  discipline  and  virtue  ;  therefore  it  is  good  to  con- 
sider of  deformity,  not  as  a,sign  which  is  more  deceivable,5  but 
use  which  seldom  faileth  of  the  effect.    Whosoever  hath 
anything  fixed  in  Ins  person  that  doth  induce  contempt,  hath 
perpetual  spur  in  himself  to  rescue  and  deliver  himself 
from  scorn  ;  therefore  all  deformed  persons  are  extreme  bold  ; 

i/bre  in  the  sense  of  greater.    So  Shakespeare,  repeatedly. 

4    "Tin-  Autumn  of  the  beautiful  is  beautiful." 

")  Dwi  i-able  for  deceptive;  the  passive  form  with  the  active  sense.  So  in 
K'utij  nifliti  ril-  tin'  Si'coinl,  ii., '.'» :  "  Show  me  thy  humble  heait,  and  not  thy  knee, 
•u  iio.-c  duly  is  tli'.cei  fable  ami  false.  Also,  in  As  You  Like  It,  we  have  disputable 


610  BACON. 

first,  as  in  their  own  defence,  as  being  exposed  to  scorn,  but  in 
process  of  time  by  a  general  habit.  Also  it  stirreth  in  them  in- 
dustry, and  especially  of  this  kind,  to  watch  and  observe  the 
weakness  of  others,  that  they  may  have  somewhat  to  repay. 
Again,  in  their  superiors,  it  quencheth  jealousy  towards  them, 
as  persons  that  they  think  they  may  at  pleasure  despise  ;  and  it 
layeth  their  competitors  and  emulators  asleep,  as  never  believ- 
ing they  should  be  in  possibility  of  advancement  till  they  see 
them  in  possession:  so  that  upon  the  matter,  in  a  great  wit, 
deformity. is  an  advantage  to  rising.  Kings  in  ancient  times 
(and  at  this  present  in  some  countries)  were  wont  to  put  great 
trust  in  eunuchs,  because  they  that  are  envious  towards  all  are 
more  obnoxious6  and  officious  towards  one  ;  but  yet  their  trust 
towards  them  hath  rather  been  as  to  good  spials  and  good  whis- 
perers than  good  magistrates  and  officers  ;  and  much  like  is  the 
reason  of  deformed  persons.  Still  the  ground  is,  they  will,  if 
they  be  of  spirit,  seek  to  free  themselves  from  scorn,  which 
must  be  either  by  virtue  or  malice  ;  and  therefore  let  it  not  be 
marvelled,  if  sometimes  they  prove  excellent  persons  ;  as  was 
Agesilaiis,  Zanger  the  son  of  Solyman,  uEsop,  Gasca  president 
of  Peru ;  and  Socrates  may  go  likewise  amongst  them,  with 
others. 


OF  STUDIES. 

STUDIES  serve  for  delight,  for  ornament,  and  for  ability. 
Their  chief  use  for  delight  is  in  privateness  and  retiring ;  for  or- 
nament, is  in  discourse  ;  and  for  ability,  is  in  the  judgment  and 
disposition  of  business:  for  expert  men  can  execute,  and  per- 
haps judge  of  particulars,  one  by  one  ;  but  the  general  counsels, 
and  the  plots  and  marshalling  of  affairs  come  best  from  those 
that  are  learned.  To  spend  too  much  time  in  studies,  is  sloth  ; 
to  use  them  too  much  for  ornament,  is  affectation ;  to  make 
judgment  wholly  by  their  rules,  is  the  humour  of  a  scholar: 
they  perfect  nature,  and  are  perfected  by  experience:  for  natu- 
ral abilities  are  like  natural  plants,  that  need  pruning  by  study  ; 
and  studies  themselves  do  give  forth  directions  too  much  at 
large,  except  they  be  bounded  in  by  experience.  Crafty  im-n 
contemn  studies,  simple  men  admire  them,  and  wise  men  use 
them  ;  for  they  teach  not  their  own  use;  but  that  is  a  wisdom 
without  them  and  above  them,  won  by  observation.  Read  not 
to  contradict  and  confute,  nor  to  believe  and  take  for  granted, 
nor  to  find  talk  and  discourse,  but  to  weigh  and  consider.  Some 

6    Obnoxious  in  the  La  t  in  sense  of  submissive  or  complying. 


OF  PRAISE.  611 

books  are  to  bo  tasted,  others  to  be  swallowed,  and  some  few  to 
be  chewed  and  digested ;  that  is,  some  books  are  to  be  read  only 
in  parts ;  others  to  be  read,  but  not  curiously ; 7  and  some  few 
to  be  read  wholly,  and  with  diligence  and  attention.  Some 
books  also  may  be  read  by  deputy,  and  extracts  made  of  them 
by  others  ;  but  that  would  be  only  in  the  less  important  argu- 
ments, and  the  meaner  sort  of  books ;  else  distilled  books  are, 
like  common  distilled  waters,  flashy  things.  Reading  maketh  a 
full  man,  conference  a  ready  man,  and  writing  an  exact  man  ; 
and  therefore,  if  a  man  write  little,  he  had  need  have  a  great 
memory ;  if  he  confer  little,  he  had  need  have  a  present  wit ; 
and  if  he  read  little,  he  had  need  have  much  cunning,  to  seem 
to  know  that  he  doth  not.  Histories  make  men  wise  ;  poets 
witty ;  the  mathematics  subtile ;  natural  philosophy  deep ; 
moral,  grave ;  logic  and  rhetoric,  able  to  contend:  Abcunt  studio, 
in  -mo/-e.s:8  nay,  there  is  no  stand  or  impediment  in  the  wit,  but 
may  be  wrought  out  by  fit  studies:  like  as  diseases  of  the  body 
may  have  appropriate  exercises, —  bowling  is  good  for  the  stone 
and  reins,  shooting  for  the  lungs  and  breast,  gentle  walking  for 
the  stomach,  riding  for  the  head  and  the  like  ;  —  so,  if  a  man's 
wit  be  wandering,  let  him  study  the  mathematics,  for  in  demon- 
strations, if  his  wit  be  called  away  never  so  little,  he  must  begin 
again  ;  if  his  wit  be  not  apt  to  distinguish  or  find  differences,  let 
him  study  the  schoolmen,  for  they  are  Cymini  sectores;9  if  he 
be  not  apt  to  beat  over  matters,  and  to  call  up  one  thing  to 
prove  and  illustrate  another,  let  him  study  the  lawyers'  cases: 
so  every  defect  of  the  mind  may  have  a  special  receipt 


OF  PRAISE. 

PRAISE  is  the  reflection  of  virtue,  but  it  is  as  the  glass  or 
body  which  giveth  the  reflection  :  if  it  be  from  the  common 
people,  it  is  commonly  false  and  naught,  and  rather  followeth 
vain  persons  than  virtuous;  for  the  common  people  understand 
not  many  excellent  virtues:  the  lowest  virtues  draw  praise  from 
them,  the  middle  virtues  work  in  them  astonishment  or  admira- 
tion ;  but  of  the  highest  virtues  they  have  no  sense  or  perceiv- 
i  all ;  but  shows,  and  species  virtutibus  similes,1  serve  best 
with  them.  Certainly  fame  is  like  a  river,  that  beareth  up  things 
light  and  swollen,  and  drowns  things  weighty  and  solid  ;  but  if 

7  Curiously  in  the  sense  of  attentively  or  inquisitively . 

8  ".Studies  pass  up  into  manners  anil  habits," 

9  "Splitters  of  cummin,"  or,  as  we  now  say,  "hair-splitters." 
1  "Appearances  resembling  virtues." 


612  BACOX. 

persons  of  quality  and  judgment  concur,  then  it  is  (as  the  Script- 
ure saith)  Nomcn  bonum  instar  un0V£nti  fragrantis ;-  it  tilleth  all 
round  about,  and  will  not  easily  away  ;  for  the  odours  of  oint- 
ments arc  more  durable  than  those  of  flowers. 

There  be  so  many  false  points  of  praise,  that  a  man  may 
justly  hold  it  a  suspect.  Some  praises  proceed  merely  of  flat- 
tery ;  and  if  he  be  an  ordinary  flatterer,  ho  will  have  certain 
common  attributes,  which  may  serve  every  man  ;  if  lie  be  a 
cunning  flatterer,  he  will  follow  the  arch-flatterer,  which  is  a, 
man's  self;  and  wherein  a  man  thinketh  best  of  himself, 
therein  the  flatterer  will  uphold  him  most:  but  if  he  be  an  im- 
pudent flatterer,  look,  wherein  a  man  is  conscious  to  himself 
that  lie  is  most  defective,  and  is  most  out  of  countenance  in 
himself,  that  will  the  flatterer  entitle  him  to  perforce, 
cnwlcntia.*  Some  praises  come  of  good  wishes  and  respects, 
which  is  a  form  due  in  civility  to  kings  and  great  persons,  l<nt- 
dando  prazcipcrc  ; 4  when,  by  telling  men  what  they  are,  they 
represent  to  them  what  they  should  be.  Some  men  an-  praised 
maliciously  to  their  hurt,  thereby  to  stir  envy  and  jealousy 
towards  them  ;  Pessiinmu  ynmx  iniuiii-nnnn  Ininluuliion  ;:>  inso- 
much as  it  was  a  proverb  amongst  the  Grecian.--,  that  "lie  that 
was  praised  to  his  hurt  should  have  a  push6  rise  upon  his  nose  "; 
as  we  say  that  a  blister  will  rise  upon  one's  tongue  that  tells  a 
lie.  Certainly  moderate  praise,  used  with  opportunity,  and  not 
vulgar,  is  that  which  doeth  the  good.  Solomon  saith,  "lie  that 
praiseth  his  friend  aloud,  rising  early,  it  shall  be  to  him  no  bet- 
ter than  a  curse."  Too  much  magnifying  of  man  or  matter 
doth  irritate  contradiction,  and  procure  envy  and  scorn.  To 
praise  a  man's  self  cannot  be  decent,  except  it  be  in  rare  < 
but  to  praise  a  man's  office  or  profession,  he  may  do  it  with 
good  grace,  and  with  a  kind  of  magnanimity.  The  Cardinals  of 
llome,  which  are  theologues,  and  friars,  and  schoolmen,  have 
a  phrase  of  notable  contempt  and  scorn  towards  civil  business  ; 
for  they  call  all  temporal  business  of  wars,  embassages,  judi- 
cature, and  other  employments,  *//'/•/•</•/<,  which  is  umler- 
sheritTries,  as  if  they  were  but  matters  for  under-sheriffs  and 
catchpoles  ;  though  many  times  those  umler-sheriffries  do  more 
good  than  their  high  speculations.  St.  Paul,  when  he  boast. < 
of  himself,  he  doth  oft  interlace,  "I  speak  like  a  fool";  but 
speaking  of  his  calling,  he  saith,  Magnijicabo  apostolatum  ^tnim.1 

"A  good  name  is  like  fragrant  ointment." 
"  Conscience  being  turned  out  of  doors." 
"To  instruct  in  tho  act  of  praising." 
"  Flatterers  are  the  wonst  kind  of  enemies." 
Push  is  an  old  word  for  a  pimple  or  pustule. 
"  I  will  magnify  my  apostleship." 


OF   JUDICATURE.  613 


OF  JUDICATUBE. 

JUDGES  ought  to  remember  that  their  office  is  jus  diccre,  and 
not  jus  dare, — to  interpret  law,  and  not  to  make  law,  or  give 
law  ;  else  will  it  be  like  the  authority  claimed  by  the  Church  of 
Rome,  which,  under  pretext  of  exposition  of  Scripture,  doth 
not  stick  to  add  and  alter,  and  to  pronounce  that  which  they  do 
not  find,  and  by  show  of  antiquity  to  introduce  novelty.  Judges 
ought  to  be  more  learned  than  witty,  more  reverend  than  plau- 
sible, and  more  advised8  than  confident.  Above  all  things,  in- 
tegrity is  their  portion  and  proper  virtue.  "  Cursed,"  saith  the 
law,  "is  he  that  removeth  the  landmark."  The  mislayer  of  a 
mere  stone  is  to  blame ;  but  it  is  the  unjust  judge  that  is  the 
capital  remover  of  landmarks,  whence  defineth  amiss  of  lands 
and  property.  One  foul  sentence  do^h  more  hurt  than  many 
foul  examples  ;  for  these  do  but  corrupt  the  stream,  the  other 
corrupteth  the  fountain:  so  saith  Solomon,  Fons  turbatus  et  vena 
.corrupta  est  Justus  cadens  in  causa  sua  cora/hi  adversaria.9 

The  office  of  judges  may  have  reference  unto  the  parties  that 
sue,  unto  the  advocates  that  plead,  unto  the  clerks  and  minis- 
ters of  justice  underneath  them,  and  to  the  sovereign  or  State 
above  them. 

First,  for  the  causes  or  parties  that  sue.  "  There  be,"  saith  the 
Scripture,  "that  turn  judgment  into  wormwood'*  j  and  surely 
there  be,  also,  that  turn  it  into  vinegar ;  for  injustice  makcth  it 
bitter,  and  delays  make  it  sour.  The  principal  duty  of  a  judge 
is  to  suppress  force  and  fraud,  whereof  force  is  the  more  perni- 
cious when  it  is  open,  and  fraud  when  it  is  close  and  disguised. 
Add  thereto  contentious  suits,  which  ought  to  be  spewed  out, 
as  the  surfeit  of  courts.  A  judge  ought  to  prepare  his  way  to  a 
just  sentence,  as  God  useth  to  prepare  His  way,  by  raising  val- 
leys and  taking  down  hills:  so,  when  there  appeareth  on  either 
side  a  high  hand,  violent  prosecution,  cunning  advantages 
taken,  combination,  power,  great  counsel,  then  is  the  virtue  of 
a  judge  seen  to  make  inequality  equal ;  that  he  may  plant  his 
judgment  as  upon  an  even  ground.  Quifortiter  emungit,  elicit 
Muyuinem  ;l  and  where  the  wine-press  is  hard  wrought,  it 
yields  a  harsh  wine,  that  tastes  of  the  grape-stone.  Judges 
must  beware  of  hard  constructions  and  strained  inferences ; 
for  there  is  no  worse  torture  than  the  torture  of  laws :  especially, 
in  case  of  laws  penal,  they  ought  to  have  care  that  that  which 

8  Here,  again,  advised  is  careful,  considerate.    See  page  587,  note  4. 

9  "A  righteous  man  falling  in  his  cause  before  his  adversary  is  as  a  troubled 
fountain  and  a  corrupt  spring," 

I    "  lie  who  wrings  the  nose  hard  brings  blood."  u 


C14  BACOX. 

was  meant  for  terror  be  not  turned  into  rigour ;  and  that  they 
bring  not  upon  the  people  that  shower  whereof  the  Scripture 
ftpeaketk,  Phtct  super  cos  laqucos  ;'2  for  penal  laws  pressed  are  a 
shower  of  snares  upon  the  people:  therefore  let  penal  laws,  if 
they  have  been  sleepers  of  long,  or  if  they  be  grown  unfit  for 
the  present  time,  bo  by  wise  judges  confined  in  the  execution: 
Jitdicis  offidum  cst,  ut  res,  ita  tempora  rcrum,  &c.3  In  causes  of 
life  and  death,  judges  ought  (as  far  as  the  law  permitteth)  in 
justice  to  remember  mercy,  and  to  cast  a  severe  eye  upon  the 
example,  but  a  merciful  eye  upon  the  person. 

Secondly,  for  the  advocates  and  counsel  that  plead.  Patience 
and  gravity  of  hearing  is  an  essential  part  of  justice  ;  and  an 
over-speaking  judge  is  no  well-tuned  cymbal.  It  is  no  grace  to 
a  judge  first  to  find  that  which  he  might  have  hoard  in  due 
time  from  the  bar;  or  to  show  quickness  of  conceit  in  cutting 
off  evidence  or  counsel  too  short,  or  t<>  prevent4  information  by 
questions,  though  port  incur.  The  parts  of  a  judge  in  hearing 
arc  four, —  to  direct  the  evidence;  to  moderate  length,  repeti- 
tion, or  importinency  of  speech  ;  to  recapitulate,  select,  and  col- 
late the  material  points  of  that  which  hath  been  said  ;  and  to 
give  the  rule  or  sentence.  Whatsoever  is  above  these  is  too 
much,  and  proceedeth  cither  of  glory,5  and  willingness  to 
speak,  or  of  impatience  to  hear,  or  of  shortness  of  memory,  or 
of  want  of  a  staid  and  equal  attention.  It  is  a  strango  tiling  to 
see  that  the  boldness  of  advocates  should  prevail  with  judges, 
whereas  they  should  imitate  (Jod,  in  whose  seat  they  sit,  who 
represseth  the  presumptuous,  and  giveth  grace6  to  the  modest ; 
but  it  is  more  strange  that  judges  should  have  noted  favourites, 
which  cannot  but  cause  multiplication  of  fees,  and  suspicion  of 
by-ways.  There  is  due  from  the  judge  to  the  advocate  some 
commendation  and  gracing,  where  causes  are  well  handled  and 
fair  pleaded,  especially  towards  the  side  which  obtainoth  not ; 
for  that  upholds  in  the  client  the  reputation  of  his  counsel,  and 
beats  down  in  him  the  conceit  of  his  cause.7  There  is  likewise 
due  to  the  public  a  civil  reprehension  of  advocates,  where 
there  appeareth  cunning  counsel,  gross  neglect,  slight  informa- 

2  "  lie  will  rain  snares  upon  them." 

3  "  It  is  the  duty  of  a  judge  to  consider  not  only  the  facts  but  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case." 

4  Prevent  in  its  old  sense  of  anticipate  or. forestall. 

5  Glory  here  is  vainglory  ;  that  is  rauntinr/  or  display.     See  page  603,  note  G. 

6  Grace  in  ihe  sense  of  favour.    So  in  St.  James,  iv.,  G:  "God  rcsisteth  the 
proud,  but  giveth  grace  unto  the  humble." 

7  That  is,  abates  his  conlidence  in  the  goodness  of  his  cause.    Conceit  for 
opinion.     So  in  King  Henry  the  Eiakth,  ii.,  .". :  "  1  shall  not  fail  to  approve  the  fair 
conceit  the  King  hath  of  you."   Also  in  the  Scripture  saying :  •«  Seest  thou  a  man 
wise  in  his  own  conceit  t " 


OF   JUDICATURE.  615 

lion,  indiscreet  pressing,  or  an  over-bold  defence.  And  let  not 
the  counsel  at  the  bar  chop8  with  the  judge,  nor  wind  himself 
into  the  handling  of  the  cause  anew  after  the  judge  hath  de- 
c-hired his  sentence  ;  but,  on  the  other  side,  let  not  the  judge 
meet  the  cause  half  way,  nor  give  occasion  to  the  party  to  say 
his  counsel  or  proofs  were  not  heard. 

Thirdly,  for  that  that  concerns  clerks  and  ministers.  The 
place  of  justice  is  a  hallowed  place  ;  and  therefore  not  only  the 
bench,  but  the  footpace9  and  precincts  and  purprise1  thereof 
ought  to  be  preserved  without  scandal  and  corruption  ;  for,  cer- 
tainly, "Grapes,"  as  the  Scripture  saith,  "will  not  be  gathered 
of  thorns  or  thistles"  ;  neither  can  justice  yield  her  fruit  with 
sweetness  amongst  the  briars  and  brambles  of  catching  and 
polling-  clerks  and  ministers.  The  attendance  of  courts  is  sub- 
ject to  four  bad  instruments:  first,  certain  persons  that  are 
sowers  of  suits,  which  make  the  court  swell,  and  the  country 
pine:  the  second  sort  is  of  those  that  engage  courts  in  quarrels 
of  jurisdiction,  and  are  not  truly  amid  curice,  butparasiti  curicef 
in  pulling  a  court  up  beyond  her  bounds  for  their  own  scraps 
and  advantage:  the  third  sort  is  of  those  that  maybe  accounted 
the  left  hands  of  courts ;  persons  that  are  full  of  nimble  and 
sinister  tricks  and  shifts,  whereby  they  pervert  the  plain  and 
direct  courses  of  courts,  and  bring  justice  into  oblique  lines  and 
labyrinths:  and  the  fourth  is  the  poller  and  exacter  of  fees; 
which  justifies  the  common  resemblance  of  the  courts  of  jus- 
tic*  1<>  the  bush  whercunto  while  the  sheep  flies  for  defence  in 
weut  her,  he  is  sure  to  lose  part  of  his  fleece.  On  the  other  side, 
an  ancient  clerk,  skilful  in  precedents,  wary  in  proceeding,  and 
understanding  in  the  business  of  the  court,  is  an  excellent  fin- 
a  court,  and  doth  many  times  point  the  way  to  the  judge 
himself. 

Fourthly,  for  that  which  may  concern  the  sovereign  and  Es- 
tate. Judges  ought,  above  all,  to  remember  the  conclusion  of 
;<>man  Twelve  Tables,  Salus  populi  suprema  lex  ;4  and  to 
know  that  laws,  except  they  be  in  order  to  that  end,  are  but 
things  captious,  and  oracles  not  well  inspired:  therefore  it  is  a 

8    To  chop,  here,  is  to  bandy  words.    Sec  page  602,  note  9. 

0  TL\\U  footpace  is  what  we  call  the  lobby. 

1  The  purprise  is  the  enclosure.    So  in  Holland's  Plutarch :  "  Their  wives  and 
children  were  to  assemble  all  together  unto  a  certain  place  in  Phocis,  and  en- 
vhon  the  whole  purprine  and  precinct  thereof  with  a  huge  quantity  of  wood." 

2  To  poll  is  an  old  word  for  to  pillage,  to  plunder.    Poller,  a  little  further  on, 
has  the  same  sense.    So  Burton  :  "  Ho  may  rail  doxvnright  at  a  spoiler  of  couu- 

and  yet  in  office  be  a  most  grievous  poller  himself." 

i    '  friends  of  the  court,"  but  "parasites  of  the  court." 
4    "  The  safety  of  the  people  is  the  supremo  law." 


616  BACON1. 

happy  tiling  in  a  State,  when  kings  and  states5  do  often  con- 
suit  with  judges  ;  and,  again,  when  judges  do  often  consult 
with  the  king  and  State:  the  one,  when  there  is  matter  of  law 
intervenient  in  business  of  State;  the  other,  when  there  is 
some  consideration  of  State  intorvenient  in  matter  of  law  ;  for 
many  times  the  things  deduced  to  judgment  may  be  meum  and 
tuum,  when  the  reason  and  consequence  thereof  may  trench  to 
point  of  Estate.  I  call  matter  of  Estate,  not  only  the  parts  of 
sovereignty,  but  whatsoever  introduceth  any  great  alteration  or 
dangerous  precedent ;  or  concerneth  manifestly  any  great  por- 
tion of  people:  and  let  no  man  weakly  conceive  that  just  laws 
and  true  policy  have  any  antipathy  ;  fur  they  are  like  the  spirits 
and  sinews,  that  one  moves  with  the  other.  Let  judges  also  re- 
member that  Solomon's  throne  was  supported  by  lions  on  both 
sides:  let  them  be  lions,  but  yet  lions  under  the  throne  ;  being 
circumspect  that  they  do  not  check  or  oppose  any  points  of 
sovereignty.  Let  not  judges,  also,  be  so  ignorant  of  their  own 
right  as  to  think  there  is  not  left  them,  as  a  principal  part  of 
their  ofllce,  a  wise  use  and  application  of  laws;  for  they  may 
remember  what  the  apostle  saith  of  a  greater  law  than  theirs: 
Nos  scimus  quia  lex  bona  est,  modo  quis  cd  utatiir  legitime.* 


OF   A2sTGEK. 

To  seek  to  extinguish  anger  utterly  is  but  a  bravery 7  of  the 
Stoics.  "We  have  better  oracles  :  "  Be  angry,  but  sin  not ;  let 
not  the  Sun  go  down  upon  your  anger."  Anger  must  be  limited 
and  confined  both  in  race  and  in  time.  "We  will  first  speak  how 
the  natural  inclination  and  habit  "to  be  angry"  may  be  attem- 
pered and  calmed ;  secondly,  how  the  particular  motions  of 
anger  may  be  repressed,  or  at  least  refrained  from  doing  mis- 
chief ;  thirdly,  how  to  raise  anger,  or  appease  anger  in  another. 

For  the  first,  there  is  no  other  way  but  to  meditate  and  rumi- 
nate well  upon  the  effects  of  anger,  how  it  troubles  man's  life  ; 
and  the  best  time  to  do  this,  is  to  look  back  upon  anger  when 
the  fit  is  thoroughly  over.  Seneca  saith  well,  that  "anger  is 
like  ruin,  which  breaks  itself  upon  that  it  falls."  The  Scripture 
exhorteth  us  "to  possess  our  souls  in  patience"  ;  whosoever  is 
out  of  patience,  is  out  of  possession  of  his  soul.  Men  must  not 
turn  bees,  animasque  in  vulture  ponunt.*  Anger  is  certainly  a 

5  States  for  orders.    See  page  193,  note  -2. 

6  "  Wo  know  that  the  law  is  good,  if  a  man  use  it  lawfully." 

7  liravery,  again,  for  boast  or  bravado.    See  page  576,  note  0. 

8  "Ami  sting  their  lives  into  the  wound." 


OF 'ANGER.  C17 

kind  of  baseness,  as  it  appears  well  in  the  weakness  of  those 
subjects  in  whom  it  reigns,  children,  women,  old  folks,  sick 
folks.  Only  men  must  beware  that  they  carry  their  anger  rather 
with  scorn  than  with  fear  ;  so  that  they  may  seem  rather  to  be 
above  the  injury  than  below  it ;  which  is  a  thing  easily  done,  if 
a  man  will  give  law  to  himself  in  it. 

For  the  second  point,  the  causes  and  motives  of  anger  are 
chiefly  three  :  first,  to  be  too  sensible  of  hurt ;  for  no  man  is 
angry  that  feels  not  himself  hurt ;  and  therefore  tender  and 
delicate  persons  must  needs  be  oft  angry,  they  have  so  many 
things  to  trouble  them,  which  more  robust  natures  have  little 
sense  of  :  the  next  is,  the  apprehension  and  construction  of  the 
injury  offered,  to  be,  in  the  circumstances  thereof,  full  of  con- 
tempt ;  for  contempt  is  that  which  putteth  an  edge  upon  anger, 
as  much  or  more  than  the  hurt  itself  ;  and  therefore,  when  men 
are  ingenious  in  picking  out  circumstances  of  contempt,  they  do 
kindle  their  anger  much :  lastly,  opinion  of  the  touch 9  of  a 
man's  reputation  doth  multiply  and  sharpen  anger;  wherein 
the  remedy  is,  that  a  man  should  have,  as  Gonsalvo  was  wont  to 
say,  telam  honoris  crassiorim.1  But,  in  all  refrainings  of  anger, 
it  is  the  best  remedy  to  win  time,  and  to  make  a  man's  self  be- 
lieve that  the  opportunity  of  his  revenge  is  not  yet  come  ;  but 
that  he  foresees  a  time  for  it,  and  so  to  still  himself  in  the 
mean  time,  and  reserve  it. 

To  contain2  anger  from  mischief,  though  it  take  hold  of  a 
man,  there  be  two  things  whereof  you  must  have  special  cau- 
tion :  the  one,  of  extreme  bitterness  of  words,  especially  if  they 
be  aculeate  and  proper ; 8  for  communia,  maledicta*  are  nothing 
so  much:  and,  again,  that  in  anger  a  man  reveal  no  secrets  ;  for 
that  makes  him  not  fit  for  society  :  the  other,  that  you  do  not 
peremptorily  break  off  in  any  business  in  a  fit  of  anger ;  but, 
howsoever  you  show  bitterness,  do  not  act  any  thing  that  is  not 
revocable. 

For  raising  or  appeasing  anger  in  another,  it  is  done  chiefly  by 
choosing  of  times,  when  men  are  frowardest  and  worst  disposed, 
to  incense  them;  again,  by  gathering  (as  was  touched  before)  all 

9  A  peculiar  use  of  touch,  but  meaning,  apparently,  about  the  same  as  stain 
or  stigma :  "  the  notion  that  one's  reputation  is  touched."  So  in  the  often-quoted 
but  misunderstood  passage  in  Troilus  and  Cressida,  iii.,  3:  "  One  touch  of  nat- 
ure makes  the  whole  world  kin";  where  the  context  shows  that  "one  touch  of 
nature  "  is  equivalent  to  one  natural  blemish,  weakness,  or  folly, 

1  "A  thicker  covering  of  honour." 

2  Contain,  refrain,  and   restrain  are  often  used   indiscriminately  by  old 
writers.    So  in  Troilus  and  Cressida,  v.,  2:  "  O,  contain  yourself;  your  passion 
drawr,  cars  hither." 

3  That  is,  pointed,  or  stinging,  and  personal. 

4  "  General  reproaches." 


618  BACON. 

that  you  can  find  out  to  aggravate  the  contempt :  and  tho  two 
remedies  are  by  the  contraries  ;  the  former  to  take  good  times, 
when  first  to  relate  to  a  man  an  angry  business,  for  the  first  im- 
pression is  much  ;  and  the  other  is,  to  sever,  as  much  as  may  be, 
the  construction  of  the  injury  from  the  point  of  contempt ;  im- 
puting it  to  misunderstanding,  fear,  passion,  or  what  you  will. 


DISCREDITS  OF  LEAEXIXG. 

HERE  is  the  first  distemper  of  learning,  when  men  study 
words  and  not  matter.  And  how  is  it  possible  but  this  should 
have  an  operation  to  discredit  learning,  even  with  vulgar  capaci- 
ties, when  they  sre  learned  men's  works  like  the  first  letter  of  a 
patent,  or  limned  book  ;  which  though  it  hath  large  nourishes, 
yet  it  is  but  a  letter?  It  seems  to  me  that  Pygmalion's  frenzy 5 
is  a  good  emblem  or  portraiture  of  this  vanity:  for  words  are, 
but  the  images  of  matter;  and  except  they  have  life  of  r 
and  invention,  to  fall  in  love  with  them  is  all  one  as  to  fall  in 
love  with  a  picture. 

But  yet  notwithstanding  it  is  a  thing  not  hastily  to  be  <-on. 
demned,  to  clothe  and  adorn  the  obscurity  even  of  philosophy 
itself  with  sensible  and  plausible  elocution.  For  hereof  we 
have  great  examples  in  Xenophon,  Cicero,  Seneca,  Plutap-h, 
anil  of  Plato  also  in  some  degree  ;  and  hereof  likewise  there  is 
great  use:  for,  surely,  to  the  severe  inquisition  of  truth  and  the 
deep  progress  into  philosophy,  it  is  some  hindrance,  because  it 
is  too  early  satisfactory  to  the  mind  of  man,  and  quencheth  the 
desire  of  further  search,  before  we  come  to  a  just  period  ;  but 
then,  if  a  man  be  to  have  any  use  of  such  knowledge  in  civil 
occasions  of  conference,  counsel,  persuasion,  discourse,  or  the 
like,  then  shall  he  find  it  prepared  to  his  hands  in  those  authors 
which  write  in  that  manner.  But  the  excess  of  this  is  so  justly 
contemptible,  that  as  Hercules,  when  he  saw  the  linage  of 
Adonis,  Venus'  minion,  in  a  temple,  said  in  disdain,  JV/7  sacri 
cs ;  so  there  is  none  of  Hercules'  followers  in  learning,  that  is, 
the  more  seven*  and  laborious  sort  of  inquirers  into  truth,  but 
will  despise  those  delicacies  and  affectations,  as  indeed  Capable 
of  no  divineness.  And  thus  much  of  the  first  disease  or  distem- 
per of  learning.  • 

The  second  which  followeth  is  in  nature  worse  than  the  for- 

5  Pygmalion  is  said  to  have  made  an  image  of  a  maiden  so  beautiful,  that  lie 
went  mad  with  love  for  it,  and  prayed  Aphrodite  to  breathe  life  into  it.  The 
prayer  being  granted,  he  then  married  the  maiden. 


DISCREDITS  OF  LEARNING.  619 

mer:  for,  as  substance  of  matter  is  better  than  beauty  of  words, 
so,  contrariwise,  vain  matter  is  worse  than  vain  words:  wherein 
it  seemeth  the  reprehension  of  St.  Paul  was  not  only  proper  for 
those  times,  but  prophetical  for  the  times  following ;  and  not 
only  respective  to  divinity,  but  extensive6  to  all  knowledge: 
Devita  prof  anas  vocum  novitates,  et  oppositiones  falsi  nwnini*  scien- 
tice.1  For  he  assigneth  two  marks  and  badges  of  suspected  and 
falsified  science:  the  one,  the  novelty  and  strangeness  of  terms  ; 
the  other,  the  strictness  of  positions,  which  of  necessity  dotli 
induce  oppositions,  and  so  questions  and  altercations.  Surely, 
like  as  many  substances  in  Nature  which  are  solid  do  putrefy 
and  corrupt  into  worms  ;  so  it  is  the  property  of  good  and  sound 
knowledge  to  putrefy  and  dissolve  into  a  number  of  subtile, 
idle,  unwholesome,  and  (as  I  may  term  them)  vermiculate  ques- 
ticn  ,  which  have  indeed  a  kind  of  quickness  and  life  of  spirit, 
but  no  soundness  of  matter  or  goodness  of  quality.  This  kind 
of  degenerate  learning  did  chiefly  reign  amongst  the  schoolmen; 
who  — having  sharp  and  strong  wits,  and  abundance  of  leisure, 
and  small  variety  of  reading,  but  their  wits  being  shut  up  in 
the  cells  of  a  few  authors,  (chiefly  Aristotle  their  dictator,)  as 
their  persons  were  shut  up  in  the  cells  of  monasteries  and  col- 
leges, and  knowing  little  history,  either  of  Nature  or  time  — 
did,  out  of  no  great  quantity  of  matter  and  infinite  agitation  of 
wit,  spin  out  unto  us  those  laborious  webs  of  learning  which 
are  extant  in  their  books.  For  the  wit  and  mind  of  man,  if  it 
work  upon  matter,  which  is  the  contemplation  of  the  creatures 
of  God,  worketh  according  to  the  stuff,  and  is  limited  thereby ; 
but  if  it  work  upon  itself,  as  the  spider  worketh  his  web,  then  it 
is  endless,  and  brings  forth  indeed  cobwebs  of  learning,  admi- 
rable for  the  fineness  of  thread  and  work,  but  of  no  substance 
or  profit. 

This  same  unprofitable  subtilty  or  curiosity  is  of  two  sorts  ; 
either  in  the  subject  itself  that  they  handle,  when  it  is  a  fruitless 
speculation  or  controversy,  (whereof  there  are  no  small  number 
both  in  divinity  and  philosophy,)  or  in  the  manner  or  method 
of  handling  of  a  knowledge,  which  amongst  them  was  this  : 
Upon  every  particular  position  or  assertion  to  frame  objections, 
and  to  those  objections,  solutions  ;  which  solutions  were  for  the 
most  part  not  confutations,  but  distinctions  :  whereas  indeed 
UK;  strength  of  all  sciences  is,  as  the  strength  of  the  old  man's 
faggot,  in  the  bond.  For  the  harmony  of  a  science,  supporting 
each  part  the  other,  is  and  ought  to*  be  the  true  and  brief  confu- 

6  Extensive  for  extensible;  the  active  form  "with  the  passive  sense.     This 
indiscriminate  use  of  active  an<l  passive  forms  was  very  common. 

7  "  Shun  Uippunt  novelties  of  speech,  and  oppositions  of  science  falsely  so 
called." 


620  BACOX. 

tation  and  suppression  of  all  the  smaller  sort  of  objections. 
But,  on  the  other  side,  if  you  take  out  every  axiom,  as  the  sticks 
of  the  faggot,  one  by  one,  you  may  quarrel  with  them,  and  bend 
them  and  break  them  at  your  pleasure  :  so  that  as  was  said  of 
Seneca,  Verborum  minutiis  rerum  frangit  pondera,9  so  a  man  may 
truly  say  of  the  schoolmen,  Quectifa/mim  minutiis  sdentiarutn 
Jrangunt  soliditatcm*  For  were  it  not  better  for  a  man  in  a  fair 
room  to  set  up  one  great  light,  or  branching  candlestick  of  lights, 
than  to  go  about  with  a  small  watch-candle  into  every  corner? 
And  such  is  their  method,  that  rests  not  so  much  upon  evidence 
of  truth  proved  by  arguments,  authorities,  similitudes,  exam- 
ples, as  upon  particular  confutations  and  solutions  of  every 
scruple,  cavillation,  and  objection  ;  breeding,  for  the  most  part, 
one  question  as  fast  as  it  solveth  another :  even  as  in  the  former 
resemblance,  when  you  carry  the  light  into  one  corner,  you 
darken  the  rest.  So  that  the  fable  and  fiction  of  Scylla  seemeth 
to  be  a  lively  image  of  this  kind  of  philosophy  or  knowledge ; 
which  was  transformed  into  a  comely  virgin  for  t ho  upper  parts  ; 
but  then  Candida  succinctam  latrantibus  inyuina  monslris : 1  so 
the  generalities  of  the  schoolmen  are  for  a  while  good  and  pro- 
portionable ;  but  then,  when  you  descend  into  their  distinct  ions 
and  decisions,  instead  of  a  fruitful  womb  for  the  use  and  benefit 
of  man's  life,  they  end  in  monstrous  altercations  and  barking 
questions.  So  as  it  is  not  possible  but  this  quality  of  knowl- 
edge must  fall  under  popular  contempt,  the  people  being  apt  to 
contemn  truth  upon  occasion  of  controversies  and  altercations, 
and  to  think  they  are  all  out  of  their  way  which  never  meet ; 
and  when  they  see  such  digladiation  about  subtilties,  and  mat- 
ters of  no  use  or  moment,  they  easily  fall  upon  that  judgment 
of  Dionysius  of  Syracusa,  Verba  ista  sunt  senum  otiosorum.'- 

Notwithstanding,  certain  it  is  that  if  those  schoolmen  to  their 
great  thirst  of  truth  and  unwearied  travail  of  wit  had  joined 
variety  and  universality  of  reading  and  contemplation,  they  had 
proved  excellent  lights,  to  the  great  advancement  of  all  learn- 
ing and  knowledge  ;  but,  as  they  are,  they  are  great  undertakers 
indeed,  and  fierce  with  dark  keeping.3  But  as,  in  the  inquiry  of 
the  Divine  truth,  their  pride  inclined  to  leave  the  oracle  of 
God's  word,  and  to  vanish  in  the  mixture  of  their  own  inventions; 
so,  in  the  inquisition  of  Nature,  they  ever  left  the  oracle  of  God's 

8  "  lie  breaks  down  the  strength  of  things  with  nice  verbal  distinctions." 

9  "They  fritter  away  the  solid  mass  of  the  sciences  with  minute  questions." 

1  "  Having  her  fair  loins  girded  about  with  barking  monsters." 

2  "  Those  arc  the  words  of  idle  old  men." 

3  That  is,  as  certain  animals  are  made  llerce  by  being  kept  in  the  dark.    Ba- 
con seems  to  mean  that  the  minds  of  the  schoolmen  grew  rabid  from  being 
imprisoned  in  one  idea,  or  in  a  narrow  cell  of  thought. 


DISCREDITS  OF   LEARNING.  621 

•works,  and  adored  the  deceiving  and  deformed  images  which 
the  unequal  mirror  of  their  own  minds,  or  a  few  received  au- 
thors or  principles,  did  represent  unto  them.  And  thus  much 
for  the  second  disease  of  learning. 

For  the  third  vice  or  disease  of  learning,  which  concerneth 
deceit  or  untruth,  it  is  of  all  the  rest  the  foulest ;  as  that  which 
doth  destroy  the  essential  form  of  knowledge,  which  is  nothing 
but  a  representation  of  truth  :  for  the  truth  of  being  and  the 
truth  of  knowing  are  one,  differing  no  more  than  the  direct 
beam  and  the  beam  reflected.  This  vice  therefore  brancheth 
itself  into  two  sorts  ;  delight  in  deceiving  and  aptness  to  be  de- 
ceived ;  imposture  and  credulity ;  which  although  they  appear 
to  be  of  a  diverse  nature,  the  one  seeming  to  proceed  of  cunning 
and  the  other  of  simplicity,  yet  certainly  they  do  for  the  most 
part  concur :  for,  as  the  verse  noteth,  Percontatorem  fugito,  nam 
garrulus  idem  est,*  an  inquisitive  man  is  a  prattler  ;  so  upon  the 
like  reason  a  credulous  man  is  a  deceiver  :  as  we  see  it  in  fame, 
that  lie  that  will  easily  believe  rumours  will  as  easily  augment 
rumours,  and  add  somewhat  to  them  of  his  own  ;  which  Tacitus 
wisely  noteth,  when  he  saith,  Finyunt  simul  creduntque:&  so 
great  an  aflinity  hath  fiction  and  belief. 

As  for  the  overmuch  credit  that  hath  been  given  unto  authors 
in  sciences,  in  making  them  dictators,  that  their  words  should 
stand,  and  not  consuls  to  give  advice ;  the  damage  is  infinite 
that  sciences  have  received  thereby,  as  the  principal  cause  that 
hath  kept  them  low  at  a  stay  without  growth  or  advancement. 
For  hence  it  hath  come,  that  in  arts  mechanical  the  first  deviser 
comes  shortest,  and  time  addeth  and  perfecteth  ;  but  in  sciences 
the  first  author  goeth  farthest,  and  time  loseth  and  corrupteth. 
So,  we  see,  artillery,  sailing,  printing,  and  the  like,  were  grossly 
managed  at  the  first,  and  by  time  accommodated  and  refined  ; 
but,  contrariwise,  the  philosophies  and  sciences  of  Aristotle, 
J'lato,  Democritus,  Hippocrates,  Euclides,  Archimedes,  of  most 
vigour  at  the  first  and  by  time  degenerate  and  imbased  ;  whereof 
the  reason  is  no  other,  but  that  in  the  former  many  wits  and  in- 
dustries have  contributed  in  one  ;  and  in  the  latter  many  wits 
and  industries  have  been  spent  about  the  wit  of  some  one,  whom 
many  times  they  have  rather  depraved  than  illustrated.  For, 
as  water  will  not  ascend  higher  than  the  level  of  the  first  spring- 
head from  whence  it  descendeth,  so  knowledge  derived  from 
Aristotle,  and  exempted  from  liberty  of  examination,  will  not 
rise  again  higher  than  the  knowledge  of  Aristotle.  And  there- 
fore, although  the  position  bo  good,  Oportet  discentem  credere,  yet 

4  "  Shun  the  prying  questioner,  for  he  is  also  talkative." 

5  "  They  fabricate  tales,  and  at  the  same  time  believe  them." 


622 

it  must  be  coupled  with  this,  Oportrt  eAectemjucUcart;*  for  dis-* 
ciples  do  owe  unto  masters  only  a  temporary  belief  and  a  sus- 
pension of  their  own  judgment  till  thoy  be  fully  instructed,  and 
not  an  absolute  resignation  or  perpetual  captivity.  And  there- 
fore, to  conclude  this  point,  1  will  say  no  more,  but  so  let  great 
authors  have  their  due,  as  time,  which  is  the  author  of  authors, 
be  not  deprived  of  his  due,  which  is,  further  and  further  to  dis- 
cover truth. 

Thus  have  I  gone  over  these  three  diseases  of  learning ;  be- 
sides the  which  there  are  some  other  rather  peccant  humours 
than  formed  diseases,  which  nevertheless  are  not  so  secret  and 
intrinsic  but  that  they  fall  under  a  popular  observation  and  tra- 
ducement,  and  therefore  are  not  to  be  passed  over. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  extreme  affecting  of  two  extremi- 
ties,—  the  one  antiquity,  the  other  novelty;  wherein  it  seemeth 
the  children  of  Time  do  take  after  the  nature  and  malice  of  the 
father.  For,  as  he  devoureth  his  children,  so  one  of  them  seek- 
eth  to  devour  and  suppress  the  other  :  while  antiquity  envieth 
there  should  be  new  additions,  and  novelty  cannot  be  content 
to  add,  but  it  must  deface.  Surely  the  advice  of  the  prophet  is 
the  true  direction  in  this  matter,  State  SUJH  r  rins  antlqunK.  (t 
videte  qncrnam  sit  via  recta  et  bona  et  ambulate  in  ca.7  Antiquity 
deserveth  that  reverence,  that  men  should  make  a  stand  there- 
upon and  discover  what  is  the  best  way  ;  but,  when  the  discov- 
ery is  well  taken,  then  to  make  progression.  And,  to  speak 
truly,  Antiquitas  scpcuh  juvcntus  niundi.*  These  times  are  the 
ancient  times,  when  the  world  is  ancient,  and  not  those  which 
we  account  ancient  ordine  retrograde,  by  a  computation  back-i 
ward  from  ourselves. 

Another  error,  that  hath  also  some  affinity  with  the  former, 
is  a  conceit  that  of  former  opinions  or  sects  after  variety  and  ex- 
amination the  best  hath  still  prevailed  and  suppressed  the  rest ; 
so  as,  if  a  man  should  begin  the  labour  of  a  new  search,  he  were 
but  like  to  light  upon  somewhat  formerly  rejected,  and  by  re- 
jection brought  into  oblivion:  as  if  the  multitude,  or  the  wisest 
for  the  multitude's  sake,  were  not  ready  to  give  passage  rather 
to  that  which  is  popular  and  superficial  than  to  that  which  is 
substantial  and  profound  ;  for  the  truth  is,  that  time  seemeth 
to  be  of  the  nature  of  a  river  or  stream,  which  carrieth  down  to 
us  that  which  is  light  and  blown  up,  and  sinketh  and  drowneth 
that  which  is  weighty  and  solid. 

Another  error  hath  proceeded  from  too  great  a  reverence,  and 

6  «'  The  learner  ought  to  believe,"  and,  "  the  learned  ought  to  judge." 

7  "Take  your  stand  upon  the  ancient  ways,  and  search  which  is  the  right 
and  good  way,  and  walk  tin-rein." 

8  "  The  antiquity  of  time  is  the  youth  of  th«  world." 


DISCREDITS   OF  -LEARNING.  G23 

a  kind  of  adoration  of  the  mind  and  understanding  of  man  ;  by 
means  whereof,  men  have  withdrawn  themselves  too  much  from 
the  contemplation  of  Nature,  and  the  observations  of  experience, 
and  have  tumbled  up  and  down  in  their  own  reason  and  con- 
ceits. Upon  these  intellectual ists,  which  are  notwithstanding 
commonly  taken  for  the  most  sublime  and  divine  philosophers, 
Heraclitus  gave  a  just  censure,  saying,  "Men  sought  truth  hi 
their  own  little  worlds,  and  not  in  the  great  and  common  world"  ; 
for  they  disdain  to  spell,  and  so  by  degrees  to  read  in  the  vol- 
ume of  God's  works:  and,  contrariwise,  by  continual  meditation 
and  agitation  of  wit  do  urge  and  as  it  were  invocate  their  own 
spirits  to  divine  and  give  oracles  unto  them,  whereby  they  are 
deservedly  deluded. 

Another  error  is  an  impatience  of  doubt,  and  haste  to  asser- 
tion without  due  and  mature  suspension  of  judgment.  '  For  the 
two  ways  of  contemplation  are  not  unlike  the  two  ways  of  ac- 
tion commonly  spoken  of  by  the  ancients:  the  one  plain  and 
smooth  in  the  beginning,  and  in  the  end  impassable  ;  the  other 
rough  and  troublesome  in  the  entrance,  but  after  a  while  fair 
and  even:  so  it  is  in  contemplation  ;  if  a  man  will  begin  with 
certainties,  he  shall  end  in  doubts  ;  but  if  he  Will  be  content  to 
begin  with  doubts,  he  shall  end  in  certainties. 

Another  error  is  in  the  manner  of  the  tradition  and  delivery 
of  knowledge,  which  is  for  the  most  part  magistral  and  peremp- 
tory, and  not  ingenuous  and  faithful ;  in  a  sort  as  may  be  soon- 
est believed,  and  not  easiliest  examined.  It  is  true  that  in  com- 
pendious treatises  for  practice  that  form  is  not  to  be  disallowed  ; 
but  in  the  true  handling  of  knowledge,  men  ought  not  to  fall 
either  on  the  one  side  into  the  vein  of  Velleius  the  Epicurean, 
JV'iZ  tarn  metuens,  quam  ne  diibitare  aliquade  re  vid'eretur;9  nor  on 
the  other  side  into  Socrates'  ironical  doubting  of  all  things  ;  but 
to  propound  things  sincerely  with  more  or  less  asseveration,  as 
they  stand  in  a  man's  own  judgment  proved  more  or  less. 

Other  errors  there  are  in  the  scope  that  men  propound  to 
1  IK  mselves,whereunto  they  bend  their  endeavours:  for?  whereas 
the  more  constant  and  devote  kind  6f  professors  of  any  Science 
ought  to  propound  to  themselves  to  make  some  additions  to 
their  science,  they  convert  their  labours  to  aspire  to  certain 
second  prizes  ;  as,  to  be  a  profound  interpreter  or  commenter, 
to  be  a  sharp  champion  or  defender,  to  be  a.  methodical  com- 
pounder  or  abridger  ;  and  so  the  patrimony  of  knowledge  cometh 
to  be  sometimes  improved,  but  seldom  augmented. 

But  the  greatest  error  of  all  the  rest  is  the  mistaking  or  mis- 
placing of  the  last  or  farthest  end  of  knowledge,  For  men  have 

0    "  His  greatest  fear  was,  lest  he  should  seem  to  doubt  of  any  thing." 


624  BACOX. 

entered  into  a  desire  of  learning  and  knowledge,  sometimes 
upon  a  natural  curiosity  and  inquisitive  appetite  ;  sometimes  to 
entertain  their  minds  with  variety  and  delight  ;  sometimes  for 
ornament  and  reputation  ;  and  sometimes  to  enable  them  to 
victory  of  wit  and  contradiction  ;  and  most  times  for  lucre  and 
profession  ;  and  seldom  sincerely  to  give  a  true  account  of  their 
gift  of  reason,  to  the  benefit  and  use  of  men:  as  if  there  were 
sought  in  knowledge  a  couch  whereupon  to  rest  a  searching  and 
restless  spirit ;  or  a  terrace  for  a  wandering  and  variable  mind 
to  walk  up  and  down  with  a  fair  prospect ;  or  a  tower  of  State, 
for  a  proud  mind  to  raise  itself  upon  ;  or  a  fort  or  commanding 
ground,  for  strife  and  contention  ;  or  a  shop,  for  profit  or  sale  ; 
and  not  a  rich  storehouse  for  the  glory  of  the  Creator  and  the 
relief  of  man's  estate.  But  this  is  that  which  will  indeed  digni- 
fy and  exalt  knowledge,  if  contemplation  and  action  may  be 
more  nearly  and  straitly  conjoined  and  united  together  than 
they  have  been  ;  a  conjunction  like  unto  that  of  the  two  highest 
planets,  Saturn,  the  planet  of  rest  and  contemplation,  and  Jupi- 
ter, the  planet  of  civil  society  and  action.  Ilowbeit,  I  do  not 
mean,  when  I  speak  of  use  and  action,  that  end  before-mentioned 
of  the  applying  of  knowledge  to  lucre  and  profession  ;  for  I  am 
not  ignorant  how  much  that  diverteth  and  interrupted!  the 
prosecution  and  advancement  of  knowledge,  like  unto  the 
golden  ball  thrown  before  Atalanta,  which  while  she  goeth  aside 
and  stoopeth  to  take  up,  the  race  is  hindered  ;  Dwlinat  cursiutj 
aummque  volubile  tollit.1  Neither  is  my  meaning,  as  wa>  spoken 
of  Socrates,  to  call  philosophy  down  from  Heaven  to  converse 
upon  the  Earth  ;  that  is,  to  leave  natural  philosophy  aside,  and 
to  apply  knowledge  only  to  manners  and  policy.  But,  as  both 
Heaven  and  Earth  do  conspire  and  contribute  to  the  use  and 
benefit  of  man  ;  so  the  end  ought  to  be,  from  both  philosophies 
to  separate  and  reject  vain  speculations,  and  whatsoever  is 
empty  and  void,  and  to  preserve  and  augment  whatsoever  is 
solid  and  fruitful:  that  knowledge  may  not  be  as  a  courtesan, 
for  pleasure  and  vanity  only,  or  as  a  bond-woman,  to  acquire 
and  gain  to  her  master's  use  ;  but  as  a  spouse,  for  generation, 
fruit,  and  comfort. 


DIGNITY  AND  VALUE  OF  KNOWLEDGE. 

FIRST  let  us  seek  the  dignity  of  knowledge  in  the  archetype  or 
first  platform,  which  is  in  the  attributes  and  acts  of  (iod.  as  far 
as  they  are  revealed  to  man  and  may  be  observed  with  sobriety  ; 

1    "  She  turns  aside  from  her  course,  and  picks  up  the  rolling  gold.* 


DIGNITY  AND   VALUE   OF   KNOWLEDGE.  625 

wherein  we  may  not  seek  it  by  the  name  of  learning ;  for  all 
learning  is  knowledge  acquired,  and  all  knowledge  in  God  is 
original:  and  therefore  we  must  look  for  it  by  another  name, 
that  of  wisdom  or  sapience,  as  the  Scriptures  call  it. 

It  is  so,  then,  that  in  the  work  of  the  creation,  we  see  a  double 
emanation  of  virtue  from  God  ;  the  one  referring  more  properly 
to  power,  the  other  to  wisdom  ;  the  one  expressed  in  making 
the  subsistence  of  the  matter,  and  the  other  in  disposing  the 
beauty  of  the  form.  This  being  supposed,  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  for  any  thing  which  appeareth  in  the  history  of  the  creation, 
the  confused  mass  and  matter  of  heaven  and  earth  was  made  in 
a  moment ;  and  the  order  and  disposition  of  that  chaos  or  mass 
was  the  work  of  six  days;  such  a  note  of  difference  it  pleased 
God  to  put  upon  the  works  of  power  and  the  works  of  wisdom ; 
wherewith  concurreth,  that  in  the  former  it  is  not  set  down  that 
God  said,  "Let  there  be  heaven  and  earth,"  as  it  is  set  down  of 
the  works  following  ;  but  actually,  that  God  made  heaven  and 
earth;  the  one  carrying  the  style  of  a  manufacture,  and  the 
other  of  a  law,  decree,  or  counsel. 

-M'terthe  creation  was  finished,  it  is  set  down  unto  us  that 
man  was  placed  in  the  garden  to  work  therein  ;  which  work,  so 
appointed  to  him,  could  be  no  other  thaii  work  of  contempla- 
tion ;  that  is,  when  the  end  of  work  is  but  for  exercise  and  ex- 
periment, not  for  necessity;  for,  there  being  then  no  reluctation 
of  the  creature,  nor  sweat  of  the  brow,  man's  employment  must 
of  consequence  have  been  matter  of  delight  in  the  experiment, 
and  not  mutter  of  labour  for  the  use.  Again,  the  iirst  acts 
which  man  performed  in  Paradise  consisted  of  the  two  summary 
parts  of  knowledge  ;  the  view  of  creatures,  and  the  imposition 
of  names.  As  for  the  knowledge  which  induced  the  fall,  it  was 
not  the  natural  knowledge  of  creatures,  but  the  moral  knowl- 
eil^r  of  good  and  evil  ;  wherein  the  supposition  was,  that  God's 
commandments  or  prohibitions  were  not  the  originals  of  good 
and  evil,  but  that  they  had  other  beginnings,  which  man  aspired 
.to  know  ;  to  the  end  to  make  a  total  defection  from  God  and  to 
depend  wholly  upon  himself. 

To  descend  to  Moses  the  lawgiver,  and  God's  first  pen  :  he  is 
adorned  by  the  Scriptures  with  this  addition  and  commendation, 
"That  he  was  seen  in  all  the  learning  of  the  Egyptians  ";  which 
nation  we  know  was  one  of  the  most  ancient  schools  of  the 
world;  lor  so  Plato  brings  in  the  Egyptian  priest  saying  unto 
Solon,  "  You  Grecians  are  ever  children  ;  you  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  antiquity,  nor  antiquity  of  knowledge."  Take  a  view  of 
the  ceremonial  law  of  Moses:  you  shall  iind,  besides  the  preiig- 
u ration  of  Christ,  the  badge  or  difference  of  the  people  of  God, 
the  exercise  and  impression  of  obedience,  and  other  divine  uses 


626  BACOX. 

and  fruits  thereof,  that  some  of  the  most  learned  Rabbins  have 
travailed  profitably  and  profoundly  to  observe,  some  of  them  a 
natural,  some  of  them  a  moral  sense,  or  reduction  of  many  of 
the  ceremonies  and  ordinances.  As  in  the  law  of  the  leprosy, 
where  it  is  said,  "If  the  whiteness  have  overspread  the  flesh,  the 
patient  may  pake  abroad  for  clean;  but  if  there  be  any  whole 
flesh  remaining,  he  is  to  be  shut  up  for  unclean  ";  one  of  thorn 
noteth  a  principle  of  Nature,  that  putrefaction  is  more  conta- 
gious before  maturity  than  after  :  and  another  noteth  a  position 
of  moral  philosophy,  that  men  abandoned  to  vice  do  not  so 
much  corrupt  manners,  as  those  that  are  half  good  and  half  evil. 
So  in  this  and  very  many  other  places  in  that  law,  there  is  to  be 
found,  besides  the  theological  sense,  much  aspersion  of  phi- 
losophy. 

So  likewise  in  the  person  of  Solomon  the  King,  we  see  the 
gift  or  endowment  of  wisdom  and  learning,  both  in  Solomon's 
petition  and  in  God's  assent  thereunto,  preferred  before  all 
other  terrene  and  temporal  felicity.  J3y  virtue  of  which  grant 
or  donative  of  God,  Solomon  became  enabled  not  only  to  write 
those  excellent  parables  or  aphorisms  concerning  divine  and 
moral  philosophy  ;  but  also  to  compile  a  natural  history  of  all 
verdure,  from  the  cedar  upon  the  mountain  to  the  moss  upon 
the  wall,  (which  is  but  a  rudiment  between  putrefaction  and  an 
herb,)  and  also  of  all  things  that  breathe  or  move.  Nay,  the 
same  Solomon  the  King,  although  he  excelled  in  the  glory  of 
treasure  and  magnificent  buddings,  of  shipping  and  navigation, 
of  service  and  attendance,  of  fame  and  renown,  and  the  like, 
yet  he  maketh  no  claim  to  any  of  those  glories,  but  only  to  the 
glory  of  inquisition  of  truth;  for  so  he  saith  expressly,  "The 
glory  of  God  is  to  conceal  a  thing,  but  the  glory  of  the  king  is  to 
find  it  out";  as  if,  according  to  the  innocent  play  of  children, 
the  Divine  Majesty  took  delight  to  hide  His  works,  to  the  end 
to  have  them  found  out;  and  as  if  kings  could  not  obtain  a 
greater  honour  than  to  be  God's  playfellows  in  that  game  ;  con- 
sidering the  great  commandment  of  wits  and  means,  whereby 
nothing  needeth  to  be  hidden  from  them. 

Neither  did  the  dispensation  of  God  vary  in  the  times  after 
our  Saviour  came  into  the  world  ;  for  our  Saviour  himself  did 
first  show  His  power  to  subdue  ignorance,  by  His  conference 
with  the  priests  and  doctors  of  the  law,  before  He  showed  His 
power  to  subdue  Nature  by  His  miracles.  And  the  coining  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  was  chiefly  figured  and  expressed  in  the  simili- 
tude and  gift  of  tongues,  which  are  but  n/dcnld  t<-ii>iti<i. 

So  in  the  election  of  those  instruments  which  it  pleased  God 
to  use  for  the  plantation  of  the  faith,  notwithstanding  that  at 
the  first  He  did  employ  persons  altogether  unlearned,  otherwise 


DIGNITY  AXD  VALUE:  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  G27 

than  by  inspiration,  more  evidently  to  declare  His  immediate 
working,  and  to  abase  all  human  wisdom  and  knowledge  ;  yet 
nevertheless  that  counsel  of  His  was  no  sooner  performed,  but 
in  the  next  vicissitude  and  succession  He  did  send  His  divine 
truth  into  the  world,  waited  on  with  other  learnings,  as  with 
servants  and  handmaids  :  for  so  we  see  St.  Paul,  who  was 
only  learned  amongst  the  Apostles,  had  his  pen  most  used  in 
the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament. 

So  again  we  find  that  many  of  the  ancient  bishops  and  fathers 
of  the  Church  were  excellently  read  and  studied  in  all  the  learn- 
ing of  the  heathen  ;  insomuch  that  the  edict  of  the  Emperor 
Julianus  (whereby  it  was  interdicted  unto  Christians  to  be  ad- 
mitted into  schools,  lectures,  or  exercises  of  learning)  was  es- 
teemed and  accounted  a  more  pernicious  engine  and  machination 
against  the  Christian  Faith  than  were  all  the  sanguinary  perse- 
cutions of  his  predecessors ;  neither  could  the  emulation  and 
jealousy  of  Gregory  the  first  of  that  name,  Bishop  of  Rome, 
ever  obtain  the  opinion  of  piety  or  devotion  ;  but,  contrariwise, 
received  the  censure  of  humour,  malignity,  and  pusillanimity, 
even  amongst  holy  men  ;  in  that  he  designed  to  obliterate  and 
extinguish  the  memory  of  heathen  antiquity  and  authors.  But, 
contrariwise,  it  was  the  Christian  Church,  which,  amidst  the 
inundations  of  the  Scythians  on  the  one  side  from  the  North- 
west, and  the  Saracens  from  the  East,  did  preserve  in  the  sacred 
lap  and  bosom  thereof  the  precious  relics  even  of  heathen  learn- 
ing, which  otherwise  had  been  extinguished  as  if  no  such  thing 
had  ever  been. 

Wherefore,  to  conclude  this  part,  let  it  be  observed,  that  there 
be  two  principal  duties  and  services,  besides  ornament  and  illus- 
tration, which  philosophy  and  human  learning  do  perform  to 
faith  and  religion.  The  one,  because  they  are  an  effectual  in- 
ducement to  the  exaltation  of  the  glory  of  God.  For,  as  the 
Psalms  and  other  Scriptures  do  often  invite  us  to  consider  and 
magnify  the  great  and  wonderful  works  of  God,  so,  if  we  should 
rest  only  in  the  contemplation  of  the  exterior  of  them  as  they 
first  offer  themselves  to  our  senses,  we  should  do  a  like  injury 
unto  the  majesty  of  God,  as  if  we  should  judge  or  construe  of 
the  store  of  some  excellent  jeweller,  by  that  only  which  is  set 
out  toward  the  street  in  his  shop.  The  other,  because  they 
minister  a  singular  help  and  preservative  against  unbelief  and 
error.  For  our  Saviour  saith,  "You  err,  not  knowing  the  Scrip- 
tures, nor  the  power  of  God"  ;  laying  before  us  two  books  or 
volumes  to  study,  if  we  will  be  secured  from  error  ;  first  the 
Scriptures,  revealing  the  will  of  God,  and  then  the  creatures, 
expressing  His  power;  whereof  the  latter  is  a  key  unto  the 
i'ormer  :.not  only  opening  our  understanding  to  conceive  the 


628  BACON. 

true  sense  of  the  Scriptures,  by  the  general  notions  of  reason 
and  rules  of  speech  ;  but  chiefly  opening  our  belief,  in  drawing 
us  into  a  due  meditation  of  the  omnipotency  of  God,  which  is 
chiefly  signed  and  engraven  upon  His  works.  Thus  much  there- 
fore for  Divine  testimony  and  evidence  concerning  the  true  dig- 
nity and  value  of  learning. 

As  for  human  proofs,  it  is  so  large  a  field,  as  in  a  discourse  of 
this  nature  and  brevity  it  is  fit  rather  to  use  choice  of  those 
things  which  we  shall  produce,  than  to  embrace  the  variety 
of  them.  First,  therefore,  in  the  degrees  of  human  honour 
amongst  the  heathen,  it  was  the  highest  to  obtain  to  a  venera- 
tion and  adoration  as  a  god.  This  unto  the  Christians  is  as  the 
forbidden  fruit.  But  we  speak  now  separately  of  human  testi- 
mony ;  according  to  which,  that  which  the  Grecians  call  apo- 
llmitiia,  and  the  Latins  re/a tio  inter  divos,  was  the  supreme  honour 
which  man  could  attribute  unto  man ;  specially  when  it  was 
given,  not  by  a  formal  decree  or  Act  of  State,  as  it  was  used 
among  the  Roman  Emperors,  but  by  an  inward  assent  and  be- 
lief. Which  honour,  being  so  high,  had  also  a  degree  or  middle 
term  :  for  there  were  reckoned,  above  human  honours,  honours 
heroical  and  divine  ;  in  the  attribution  and  distribution  of  which 
honours  we  see  antiquity  made  this  difference  :  that  whereas 
founders  and  uniters  of  States  and  cities,  lawgivers,  extirpers  of 
tyrants,  fathers  of  the  people,  and  other  eminent  persons  in 
civil  merit,  were  honoured  but  with  the  titles  of  worthies  or 
demi-gods  ;  such  as  were  Hercules,  Theseus,  Minos,  Romulus, 
and  the  like  ;  on  the  other  side,  such  as  were  inventors  and  au- 
thors of  new  arts,  endowments,  and  commodities  towards  man's 
life,  were  ever  consecrated  amongst  the  gods  themselves  ;  as 
was  Ceres,  Bacchus,  Mercurius,  Apollo,  and  others  :  and  justly  ; 
for  the  merit  of  the  former  is  confined  within  the  circle  of  an 
age  or  a  nation  ;  and  is  like  fruitful  showers,  which,  though 
they  be  profitable  and  good,  yet  serve  but  for  that  season,  and 
fora  latitude  of  ground  where  they  fall ;  but  the  other  is  indeed 
like  the  benefits  of  Heaven,  which  are  permanent  and  universal. 
The  former  again  is  mixed  with  strife  and  perturbation ;  but 
the  latter  hath  the  true  character  of  Divine  Presence,  coming  in 
aura  leni,  without  noise  or  agitation. 

Neither  is  certainly  that  other  merit  of  learning,  in  repressing 
the  inconveniences  which  grow  from  man  to  man,  much  inferior 
to  the  former,  of  relieving  the  necessities  which  arise  from  na- 
ture ;  which  merit  was  lively  set  forth  by  the  ancients  in  that 
feigned  relation  of  Orpheus'  theatre,  where  all  beasts  and  birds 
assembled  ;  and  forgetting  their  several  appetites,  some  of  prey, 
some  of  game,  some  of  quarrel,  stood  all  sociably  together  lis- 
tening unto  the  airs  and  accords  of  the  harp ;  the  sound  whereof 


2 

Ml 


DIGNITY   AND   VALUE   OF    KNOWLEDGE.  629 

no  sooner  ceased,  or  was  drowned  by  some  louder  noise,  but 
every  beast  returned  to  his  own  nature:  wherein  is  aptly  de- 
scribed the  nature  and  condition  of  men,  who  are  full  of  savage 
and  unreclaimed  desires,  of  profit,  of  lust,  of  revenge  ;  which  as 
long  as  they  give  ear  to  precepts,  to  laws,  to  religion,  sweetly 
touched  with  eloquence  and  persuasion  of  books,  of  sermons,  of 
harangues,  so  long  is  society  and  peace  maintained  ;  but  if  these 
instruments  be  silent,  or  that  sedition  and  tumult  make  them 
not  audible,  all  things  dissolve  into  anarchy  and  confusion. 

But  this  appeareth  more  manifestly,  when  kings  themselves, 
or  persons  of  authority  under  them,  or  other  governors  in  com- 
monwealths and  popular  Estates,2  are  endued  with  learning. 
For,  although  he  might  be  thought  partial  to  his  own  profession, 
that  said  "Then  should  people  and  Estates  be  happy,  when 
either  kings  were  philosophers,  or  philosophers  kings";  yet  so 
much  is  verified  by  experience,  that  under  learned  princes  and 
governors  there  have  been  ever  the  best  times  ;  for  howsoever 
kings  may  have  their  imperfections  in  their  passions  and  cus- 
toms ;  yet  if  they  be  illuminate  by  learning,  they,  have  those 
notions  of  religion,  policy,  and  morality,  which  do  preserve 
them  and  refrain  them  from  all  ruinous  and  peremptory  errors 
and  excesses ;  whispering  evermore  in  their  ears,  when  coun- 
sellors and  servants  stand  mute  and  silent.  And  senators  or 
counsellors  likewise,  which  be  learned,  do  proceed  upon  more 
sale  and  substantial  principles,  than  counsellors  which  are  only 
nu-ii  of  experience ;  the  one  sort  keeping  dangers  afar  off, 
whereas  the  other  discover  them  not  till  they  come  near  hand, 
and  thfii  trust  to  the  agility  of  their  wit  to  ward  or  avoid  them. 

Jt  were  too  long  to  go  over  the  particular  remedies  which 
learning  doth  minister  to  all  the  diseases  of  the  mind ;  some- 
times purging  the  ill  humours,  sometimes  opening  the  ob- 
structions, sometimes  helping  digestion,  sometimes  increasing 
appetite,  sometimes  healing  the  wounds  and  exulcerations 
thereof,  and  the  like  ;  and  therefore  I  will  conclude  with  that 
which  hath  rationcm  totius ;  which  is,  that  it  disposeth  the 

onstitution  of  the  mind  not  to  be  lixed  or  settled  in  the  de- 

'•ts  thereof,  but  still  to  be  capable  and  susceptible  of  growth 
and  reformation.  For  the  unlearned  man  knows  not  what  it 
is  lo  descend  into  himself,  or  to  call  himself  to  account,  nor 
the  pleasure  of  that  suavissima,  vita,  indies  sentire  se  fieri  tnc- 
liorcm*  The  good  parts  he  hath  he  will  learn  to  show  to 
the  full,  and  use  them  dexterously,  but  not  much  to  increase 

2  Estate  and  state  were  used  indiscriminately  in  Bacon's  time. 

3  "  The  greatest  delight  of  life  is  to  feel  that  one  is  growing  better  every 
day." 


G30  BACON. 

them.  The  faults  he  hath  he  will  learn  how  to  hide  and  colour 
them,  but  not  much  to  amend  them ;  like  an  ill  mower,  that 
mows  on  still,  and  never  whets  his  scythe.  Whereas  with  the 
learned  man  it  fares  otherwise,  that  he  doth  ever  intermix  the 
correction  and  amendment  of  his  mind  with  tin-  use  and  em- 
ployment, thereof,  ^ay,  further;  in  general  and  in  sum,  cer- 
tain it  is  that  Veritas  and  Bonitas  differ  but  as  the  seal  and  the 
print:  for  Truth  prints  Goodness,  and  they  be  tin-  clouds  of 
error  which  descend  in  the  storms  of  passions  and  perturbations. 

From  moral  virtue  let  us  pass  on  to  matter  of  power  and  com- 
mandment, and  consider  whether  in  right  reason  there  beany 
comparable  with  that  wherewith  knowledge  investeth  and 
crowneth  man's  nature.  We  see  the  dignity  of  the  command- 
ment is  according  to  the  dignity  of  the  commanded:  to  have 
commandment  over  beasts,  as  herdmrn  have,  is  a  thing  con- 
temptible; to  have  commandment  over  children,  as  schoolmas- 
ters have,  is  a  matter  of  small  honour:  to  have  commandment 
over  galley-slaves  is  a  disparagement  rather  than  an  honour. 
Neither  is  the  commandment  of  tyrants  much  better,  over 
people  which  have  put  off  the  generosity4  of  their  minds:  and 
therefore  it  was  ever  holden  that  honours  in  free  monarchies 
and  commonwealths  had  a  sweetness  more  than  in  tyrannies, 
because  the  commandment  extcndeth  more  over  the  wills  of 
men,  and  not  only  over  their  deeds  and  services.  But  yet  the 
commandment  of  knowledge  is  yet  higher  than  the  command- 
ment over  the  will;  for  it  is  a  commandment  over  the  reason, 
belief,  and  understanding  of  man,  which  is  the  highest  part  of 
the  mind,  and  giveth  law  to  the  will  itself.  For  there  is  no 
power  on  Earth  which  setteth  up  a  throne  or  chair  of  Estate  in 
the  spirits  and  souls  of  men,  and  in  their  cogitations,  imagina- 
tions, opinions,  and  beliefs,  but  knowledge  and  learning.  And 
therefore  We  see  the  detestable  and  extreme  pleasure  that  arch- 
heretics,  and  false  prophets,  and  impostors  are  transported 
with,  when  they  once  find  in  themselves  that  they  have  a  supe- 
riority in  the  faith  and  conscience  of  men  ;  so  great  as,  if  they 
have  once  tasted  of  it,  it  is  seldom  seen  that  any  torture  or  per- 
secution can  make  them  relinquish  or  abandon  it.  But  as  this 
is  that  which  the  author  of  the  llevelation  calleth  the  depth  or 
profoundness  of  Satan,  so,  by  argument  of  contraries,  the  just 
and  lawful  sovereignty  over  men's  understanding,  by  force  of 
truth  rightly  interpreted,  is  that  which  approacheth  neare>i  to 
the  similitude  of  the  Divine  rule. 

Again,  for  the  pleasure  and  delight  of  knowledge  and  learn- 
ing, it  far  surpasseth  all  other  in  Nature.  For,  shall  the  pleas- 

4    Generosity  hi  the  Latin  sense  ot  nobleness,  excellence,  or  magnanimity. 


VB  02161 


